"The Bad Israelis: a poem"

I have a thought. If the BBC weren't producing dreamy explorations of the supposed psychoses at the heart of Israel such as this one, but instead were reporting the reality of the savagery on Israel's doorstep among its neighbours, would they be producing rubbish entertaining the question of whether it's "time to negotiate with Al Qaeda?"?

According to Paul Adams of the BBC "Nadim Injaz is a man without a home, without friends, afraid for his life, trapped by more than a decade of bad luck and bad decisions."

If you read the article, you will see that the only mistakes referred to relate to his decision to be an informer for the Israelis; or maybe his brother's decision to do so. I also noticed this little encapsulation of the BBC's mentality:

"In Palestinian society, collaboration with Israel is a crime usually punishable by death. This hasn't stopped the Israelis recruiting thousands of snitches"

Got that? The mob murders that await informers are referred to as though some kind of judicial process was involved: a 'crime' , 'punishable' by 'death', carried out in the name of 'Palestinian society'. Have a look at my second link and you will see an example of Palestinian 'punishment'- and yes, sadly, Palestinian 'society'.

Meanwhile the Israelis sources are referred to informally as "snitches".

Something back-to-front here. The Israelis are painted as heartlessly abandoning their sources having stirred up Palestinian society against them, while the Palestinians escape blame for their vicious and unjust, not to say utterly savage and barbaric, behaviour. In fact the truth is their psychotic hatred of Israel is- if I may be so bold- the root cause of every informer's behaviour. Maybe that's why Europe's 'alienated youth' are turned on by the jihadis and turned off by civilisation, when savagery steals the garments of respectability, and civilisation is written off as a fix. When even a jihadi spokesman can be more honest than the BBC, what has "Western Civilisation" to offer?

The Good Journalist.

Claudia Rossett has a blog. Which is something you will welcome after reading this post from Richard North. Honestly, I have been impressed not to say amazed by the amount of detail and interest emanating from his and Helen Szamuely's EU Referendum blog ever since it started. Well, I was brought up on the MSM y'know.

Anyway, back to the good journalist. The good journalist has a sense of history. Claudia Rossett devotes her second post to covering events of sixty-sixty years ago, and to a speech from an Anglo-American of note.

I would quote some of this with reference to today, as the conflict deepens between Islam and the West seemingly more rapidly with every western denial of the fundaments of it. However we need something less hopeful, more cynical, more biting for the current age. I prefer this (all your fakes are belong to us)- a modern response to twistedness, as a stopgap while we get some bearings.

Yet More Mark Steyn:


"in today's mosques and madrassahs there is almost as little contemplation of the divine as there is in the typical Anglican sermon"

That's the good news, I guess.

Oh, and btw, you might notice I put a link to photos in the sidebar- me in Kenya back from summer 98 to 99. Undying feelings though.

To Watch This Video you will need...

1)A certain tolerance of bad language.

2)A bit of patience.

But you will laugh. Some of the best TV I've ever seen- and it's a home video, of sorts.

(via Kim Du Toit)

Btw, I think it's relevant to mention that I was absolutely smitten with the old Dukes of Hazard as a wee one.

More Steyn wisdom, here and here- from his End of the World Tour Down Under.

I love the quotations- especially the ones he repeats. The Napier quote strikes me as more and more brilliant every time I read it.

A British General in India, Napier responded to the cruel practise of Sati thus:

"'You say that it's your custom to burn widows, very well. We also have a custom. When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their neck and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it my carpenters will build a gallows; you may follow your custom, then we will follow ours.'"

Now that's my multi-cultural brutha!

Speaking of Truth, here's Mark Steyn quoting another guy:

'"The Jews are a peculiar people," wrote America's great longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer after the 1967 war. "Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem . . . But everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab . . . Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world." '

and from the man himself:

"For over a generation now, Canada and many other countries have regarded civilizational self-loathing as just another alternative lifestyle, like being gay or vegetarian. It's a kind of literal "homophobia"--a fear (phobia) of the same (homo-), the same old white-bread people that produced the world in which you live, the legal system, the property rights, the economic prosperity."

Great essay.

Why I don't want "to disappear vanish"

First I have to explain that I'm a bit of a fan of A Tangled Web, and this post is something of a riposte to David Vance's recent "feel like quitting blogging" post.

There are many reasons for not giving up posting to this site- for me.

The first is that I'd regret it if I did- and soon. You know, I care about what happens in the world and somehow I can register that concern here.

In a very small way one is part of the continuum of events- even though probably less significant than one's real life influence on events, which is vanishingly small anyway.

In some ways I blog to feel small, to set myself against events as I used to seek out the waves in the ocean as a child and try to ride them.

Let me just point out a couple of things i'd regret if i didn't blog. I'd regret that I didn't place myself in opposition to the many lies that our MSM tell, and inparticular- given their reputation, reach and resources- the BBC.

I'd regret not being able to let out how I felt the next time a major terror attack happens. I'd regret not complaining about the reverse racism, the corruption, the malaise of reason, that's infected the West.

I'd regret most of all I think the chance to listen to others, to weigh their thoughts, ideas, schemes in a medium which like it or not is going to be formative of our future world- assuming that is that there is a world to be formed.

And, in listening to others, I'd miss absolute gems like the dropping of Autumn rain such that my perceptions are like dormant seeds readying themselves to hear. Gems like this one, for instance. Or this, from the same site. Real understanding, and a real grip on things which none of us can maintain all the time, but some of us will always be manifesting. It's but for me to look, and understand.

(the two posts linked immediately above refer to an excellent point about GWB and the WOT, and a simply brilliant roundup of the data on Qana- in that order)

Islamofascism

I've talked a bit about it. Now here's Stephen Schwarz attempting to define it.

The Islamic Fascist Threat

I think most people think that talking about Islamic Fascism is just a ramping up of rhetoric, simply exaggeration for effect.

Howeve, since Sept. 11th I have consistently held the view that it's an accurate description.

One reason for this is the strong dimension of racism in the Islamic movement, which has really been overlooked and downplayed.

A vital part of this racism, without which the true nature of Islamism cannot be appreciated, is the racism against black Africans. Of course the racism against Jews is a prominent feature, but the underbelly of Islamic racism has traditionally been against blacks.

This racism is both historic and current. Forget the apparent tolerance of blacks among Islam in the West, when it comes to Africa proper the Arab muslims give no quarter to the blacks.

Recently I was reading up about Somalia. Did you know that there is a part of Somalia, a river valley called Juba, occupied by Bantu tribesmen, in contrast to the Arab-derived Somali populous? Their historic function was to work as a slave class, tilling the soil to provide for their Arab-Somali masters. Now many of them have fled the region altogether to avoid the Somali warlords' pillaging. That kind of tale is a commonplace reality for East and North Africa.

Turning to Sudan, I was interested to read this from Dave Kopel, as well as to hear the Sudan President's identification of his country with Hezbullah's struggles.

Dave Kopel points out that "if you’re an Arab who wants to kill blacks, then Sudan’s gun control laws became awfully loose. In Darfur, there has been a long rivalry between camel-riding Arab nomads and black African pastoralists. The Arabs consider the blacks to be racially inferior, and fit only for slavery."

The fascinating thing about the Kopel article is that it analyses not the acts of violence perpetrated against the blacks in Sudan, but the armament of the Arabs and disarmament of the blacks, thus creating the imbalance of power necessary for genocide. He outlines the very strict rules for gun ownership in Sudan, which are applied to blacks and overlooked for Arabs.

It is this kind of basic abuse of power, abusing the power of the state to oppress sections of society, which reminds me forcibly of Nazism. And where this cannot operate because the Islamists don't hold sway, the power of terror is used to turn opponents into facilitators of the growing menace by their sheer passivity in the face of fascistic evil.

And guess who is the biggest facilitator of the disarmament which has served Sudan so well? Why, the UN of course.

(and by the way this UN position is absolutely crazy to me from my exerience of Africa. There were very few weapons on display in highland North-West Kenya, anyway. There are tribal gangs which are outlaws and armed, and the government troop has his always on display, and will point very freely at any civilian who looks twice at him, but guns were not an issue- knives, meanwhile, were omnipresent, and very sharp.)

I push the boat out and email- very politely- Orange ( stuart.jackson@orange.co.uk ) about Inigo Wilson (see below post). Am assured that "suspension" is a neutral position intended to facilitate investigation. Am also told I will be 'gladly' updated on the results of the investigation. Don't really trust them, but if 'gladly' indicates that I will be updated and that will not be an onerous task, it should bode well for Mr Wilson. If not I will be very angry. MPACUK (Muslim pressure group) are claiming success over the blogger who sought to "redefine words". That's fundamental to the trouble really. Most 2nd or 3rd generation muslim immigrants have never understood what they meant in the first place.

Meanwhile Mr Wilson gets some of the LGF lizardoid assistance.

A Cause I Could Get Behind

Inigo Wilson's been suspended. For writing.

No, not the kind of hatespeech that keeps Galloway in business as he keeps his parliamentary seat with the support of his partisan muslim constituency, but the kind of clever analysis of the superficiality of what passes for public discourse that makes the manipulators of image and language uneasy.

Clearly Mr Wilson held his position not because he was pc but because he was applying his intelligence to his work. Ultimately, unfortunately, that can be the slippery slope towards a really serious crime- like telling people about it.

Is Britain Beyond Boutique Multiculturalism?

That term, "boutique multiculturalism", is a key reason for linking Jeff Goldstein's 'other side of the pond' musings on the reaction in Britain to last weeks foiled terror plot.

That and the fact that Goldstein's writing is always a joy, and his opinions never fail to stimulate.

Alison at Making Headlines produced a fine round up post on the subject, memorably getting going by saying "It is time to kick these leaders" (the truculent islamic ones that is).

So, are we ready!!!

I don't think so, but at the same time the truth is that British multiculturalism is not just boutique. It's real. I have known many, many people from a non-British background with good sense, good manners, and loyalty to Britain. There is potential, and it'd be pathetic to conclude otherwise.

Unfortunately the weeds strangle the good seed, and the politicians, consistent with the rest of British politics, have allowed the weeds to dominate. I listened in absolute disgust at the insane anti-Jewish pronouncements of a man well-known to me through the British media, Azzam Timimi. From the video (here is the video on LGF) I recognised the location, one I know reasonably well: Trafalgar Square next to the lions.

That is the problem, right there; we have all sorts of people living in fear of saying the wrong thing, and then an Islamic fascist like Timini freely mouthing off in the heart of our capital. I am angry.

What we really needed though was some good old fashioned heckling, to his face and in the faces of the Islamic fascist mob around him. When are we going to learn to be rude to the right people? Really, screaming, in your face, hit-me-and-break-the-law-go-on-do-it rude. That's when we'll begin to sort our problems out and the boutiques can truly open for business, with extensions at the back.

The Beeb loves tyrants and their happy skipping welcoming people. So says Stephen Pollard

Podast from North Israel/South Lebanon: "no-one gives a shit about a ceasefire". Interesting stuff.

Ahmadinejad, the blog.

That's right, according to Captain's Quarters (and it seems absolutely genuine)- and here it is (click the interesting English-American flag for the dodgy English language translation, if it's all in Farsi). What I like is that you can vote in Amad's online poll:

"Do you think that the US and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another word war?"

So far the 'no' vote is winning.

The below items are my thoughts about a report on Israeli potential 'war crimes' by Human Rights Watch. The influence of this organisation is in my view disproportionate and mainly malign. It's undemocratic and, with its apparently straightforward humanitarian approach, a useful crutch of legitimacy for organisations like the BBC and the UN. If you doubt the influence of it, look only to the UN's latest activity :

"The second special session of the Human Rights Council today strongly condemned the grave Israeli violations of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian law in Lebanon and decided to urgently establish and immediately dispatch a high-level inquiry commission to the region."

An announcement which follows the recommendation (with a couple of minor adjustments) of HRW in the report below:

"Human Rights Watch urges the Secretary-General of the United Nations to establish an International Commission of Inquiry to investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian law, including possible war crimes, in Lebanon and Israel and to formulate recommendations with a view to holding accountable those who violated the law."

Logic Lacunae

Having followed up my intention to read the HRW (an organisation the BBC places so much trust in) report, within a few pages of text I had a little anger to let out (but I forced myself to read the rest).

Tigerhawk was much too soft (though I think he intended to make a specific point about equivalence).

HRW launches its manifesto against Israel by saying that Israel has "consistently" launched attacks against targets offering "limited or dubious" military gains.

Thus does a self-proclaimed movement for human rights declare its understanding of the aims and means of warfare to be superior to the seasoned Israeli armed forces.

Of course, the usefulness of a target must depend on the overall aims of the action. Supposing Israel aimed at the total destruction of Hezbullah? What would that do to our analysis of military effectiveness? How does HRW's presupposition about a legitimate end result affect their view of legitimate military action? Absolutely, I'd argue.

Unless HRW will state what they think Israel's aims should legitimately be, they are pissing in the wind (as usual). They won't say it because it's unacceptable: total surrender to the demands of the Islamic world.

And sure, the war is (has been) retaliatory and defensive, but does that mean that only specifically retaliatory action is allowed, or are the Israelis actually allowed to aim to win? (the answer to that is obvious by now)

Tigerhawk points out that, following the figure presented by HRW, Israel would be 'guilty' of striking civilians in less than 1% of cases, yet HRW refers to their "consistent" non-military attacks. By contrast, HRW claims that only "occasionally" did Hezbullah site its military machinery in civilian locations.

The report quickly descends into contradiction. Having stated that they found no cases where Hezbullah deliberately used civilians to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack, they admit that Hezbullah did use civilian locations for storage of weapons and military sites. Uh- what? Hezbullah don't use human shields, they just locate near civilians. They also admit that hebullah have fired rockets from among civilian habitations. HRW's 'deep concern' (which they assert later on in the report) about this phenomenon doesn't prevent them making such an absurd train of logic. (update: In this context this from Volokh is a useful link)

Perhaps the biggest weakness is in the methodology where they go into Hezbullah heartlands, ask the locals if there were any Hezbullah fighters present when the Zionists Jews Israelis attacked, and then accept the results as reliable evidence of Israel war crimes. Oh, sure, if the village they're in has 'Hezbullah regional HQ' signposted in it- they think twice. They spent two days in South Lebanon, upon which they based a fifty page report.

One oppressed villager they interviewed says, "“The positions of the resistance are around the village, not inside the village.”. Oh, right, so I suppose we ignore the almost certain reality that members of the 'resistance' go home for a kip every 8 hours or so, come back refreshed and ready to confront the enemy, while their 'barracks' remain strictly non-military?

The issues of barracks, provisions, supplying and other supportive actions are simply not addressed by HRW. All very well if Hezbullah locate some of their rocket launchers outside habitations, but isn't it militarily advantageous to them to rest, heal, water themselves and feed themselves among civilian populations- many of whom will lead dual existences- eg. farmer/freedom fighter?

Another thing the report mentions but gives little reassurance over is the issue of the Civil Defence Force- so-called. One seriously wonders what this does when not 'defending' lebanon (its very title, CDF, including as it does the word 'defence', could indicate a military role). Putting the matter another way, since in elections in 2005 Hezbullah's election coalition won 35 seats mainly in the South, they could reasonably be called the local Government of choice for the region. In that case, surely the CDF would be likely to do their bidding? Again, not part of HRW's calculation. Nor, naturally, is the fact that the 05 elections produced results which indicated the South was a.o.k with a militia-government.

Another issue is that of the 'foreign nationals'. For some reason a lot of them have become casualties in the latest war while vacationing near the border of Israel. There have been German-lebanese, Brazilian-Lebanese and Canadian-Lebanese. Although some seem to have been there in family groupings, it's very odd that they would be in such a region at this time when surely their savvy in leaving Lebanon arose from the unrest there in the past, and being international types they'd be very aware of the wider context. Weird that they'd head in and stay in at a time of such tension. Why locate abroad to escape unrest yet choose such a time to be there? And why not get out quick; globe trotters of that kind can't be so short of cash or initiative.

On the issue of the non-military nature of the victims and their localities the HRW are fundamentally confused. In some cases they state that no military activity had taken place in specific locations to justify Israeli strikes, in others stating no connections whatsoever, or no likely connections, between the victims and the Hezbullah- but they never define the dividing line between military and civilian (they'd have a job, with Hezbullah), or when a location becomes 'civilianised' after having had military usage ie. how many days a location must be without military activity (whatever that is) before it's a warcrime to strike it.

Just to come to the HRW conclusions, among them is that Israel must

"Scrupulously observe the principle of proportionality. Cease launching any attack that may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof that would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."

Notice how the principle of proportionality is to dictate the war aims of Israel, circumscribing it and giving the Hezbullah a neat and easy cut-out n' keep template by which they can predict how far Israel will go (metaphorically and physically) and construct their plans accordingly. (and, as we know from Olmert's meandering path to war goals and rather more straightforward path to the UN high table, they may have miscalculated, but not that much.)

"Sorry HRW", I want to say- "you're naive beyond belief. Credulous, cretinous, facile". But actually none of those applies- they are just on the side of Hezbullah and the deathly Western consensus against Israel.

But now, of course, comes my disclaimer. Not that the points above aren't valid, but that obviously people who are innocent get killed in wars- always have and always will. Israel has not been trying to kill those people though, and is as far from such a practice as any participant in a conflict has been.

One extra point:

Some of the problematic examples of bombing attacks are those on the roads. However, HRW's main suggestion seems to be that a vehicle with a white flag or a red cross should be immune from attack. Mmmm, very constructive for those fighting terrorists, and so insightful.

The John Bolton Interview.

Pamela from Atlas Shrugs got a 30 minute interview with John Bolton on the US' approach to the Lebanon situation. Must listening if you care about the subject.

Some good reading for you here (why say too much when others are saying it very well?)

Sometimes an outsider can say the things we can only feel:

James Lewis has a terrific piece for the American Thinker on the role the BBC has played in creating the society which is producing suicide bombers for Allah. It has been a vital piece of the establishment jigsaw which has made it so hard for Britons to think clearly about themselves and their place in the world; to have respect for themselves and to take responsibility appropriately. Now we rely on the technocrats to save us, and are grateful to them, but the source of trouble comes from deeper down in society, and does threaten to overwhelm it.

The case of Don Stewart-Whyte struck me as particularly indicative. Former grammar school boy (like me!), halfbrother to a model (not like me; I just date them) who apparently had never met his sister, he seems the very model of a muddled modern jihader.

But the media rarely reflect on themselves and the accuracy or worthwhileness of the messages they give out. The endless barrage of sensationalism obscures the fact that serious things are happening (and they don't just obscure them, they help create them). Reading this LGF special I reflected that to have a role in the MSM requires an instantaneous ability to fit the current news into the template of modern, liberal pietistic prejudices- hence the competition to make Israel's military action seem as 'disproportionate' as possible.

Live from an Israeli bunker looks brilliantly at the psychology at work. I have to say I see only bullying brusqueness in the muslim reaction to the attempted bombing, and the same kind of aggressiveness in the media concoction concerning the Lebanese situation. It's interesting the way the British dimension in the fostering of terrorism is beginning to impact people's thinking. One commenter criticises the blogger for getting his stats wrong concerning British support for Sharia- but the mistake is an understandable one.

ps. I meant to quote the Israelly bunker on the media, Olmert and Lebanon:

"France and the US drafted a UN resolution that both Israel and Lebanon seem to accept, it will be voted on in Israel on Sunday. Olmert whom I (now very regretfully) praised when I started this blog finds it agreeable and will recommend the government to vote for passing it. If it is passed the outcome of this war has been determined not by Katyusha rockets falling on Haifa and the north of Israel, not over a hundred Israeli casualties, not the 2 million Israeli citizens living in bunkers suffering sometimes up to 10 sirens a day (and a rather new occurrences of night-time sirens and rockets), but by propaganda."

Bush's master message

While on the one hand terror is biting, and on the other the latter day Leni Reifenstahls of the Islamic world are having their techniques analysed and sponsors challenged, Bush says something far and away different in character from his recent nuanced terms.

Reuters' report is brief but effective, as he talks of being "at war with Islamic fascists."

This as Joe Lieberman, the only pro-war Democrat of note aside from the veteran Zell Miller, is sent packing by his local Democrat voters.

I am convinced Bush knows what he's doing with the language he uses; he uses the opportunity of an invasion of reality to tell it like it is. He immediately shows up the Democrat left for the vacuous space it is; he sends out the message that he's got the Islamopaths' numbers. Just the one line at the right moment is all it takes.

... and as I posted this, Natalie at Biased BBC posted this

If all it takes is one line at the right time, all it takes is one overwhelmingly (self)important media organisation with an inbuilt bias to squelch it (but of course they will fail).

Don't be dummies

As someone brought up on fond tales of humanitarian derring do- at my Co E Primary school at least- I viewed international organisations like the Red Cross as wearing a kind of halo (as well as a cross). It's slipping. Badly.

I'm just flagging up this post from Richard North. Partly because it proves my point, partly because it deserves attention (a lot more than my link will give it), and partly because I'm working on a bit of a takedown (got to be modest here) of HRW's latest ant-Israel report. Generally speaking, the rot in one apple affects others.

"No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition."

Gotta love Auden. He's so quotable on isshoos, and in this case I want to refer to Human Rights Watch, big isshoo maestros of our day.

I was inspired though by this posting on TigerHawk, which recommends that we arm ourselves (figuratively) against the siren song of equivalence sung by the BBC's favourite pressure group. (via the Instapundit)

As we do so, as in all cases, it is worth keeping in mind the advice given by Auden in the poem quoted above. That's why the reactivity of blogs is their strength. Of their very essence is the acceptance of the 'concerned condition'.

Anyway, I intend to read this guff from HRW. Feel free to follow suit if it suits you.

(sorry for my lack of posts over the weekend and monday- I wasn't, unfortunately, at some glamorous location, but I was in fact buying a new lap top following my old one's disastrous lapses. Maybe now... at last... I can get blogging proper-like. Of course my lap top's not the only sometimes-faulty equipment- there's also me)


I recommend this article in The Business by ConservativeHome's Tim Montgomerie. It's heartening to find people getting closer to my views on BBC bias.

Whilst I do consider there is an anti-Conservative bias at the BBC, it certainly isn't consistent and is not usually blatant. Tim doesn't get stuck on that one, skirting neatly round it in the opening paragraphs concerning Fox News.

Tim gets full marks from me for identifying the BBC's core biases as lying in the foreign affairs realm, specifically concerning coverage of Israel and the US. He might have done more than mention Iraq, but gets marks for political awareness for this low-key approach. I would personally have been more direct, but Montgomerie says only that British servicemen are 'disappointed' by the lack of coverage of their positive work. Aah, very good- the patriotic approach to a serious BBC bias.

Coming to BBC anti-Conservative bias, he does so by a gate left open at the back, so to speak:

'Soon after David Cameron had abandoned traditional Tory support for lower taxation and public service reform he was subjected to a very tough interview on the Today programme. Can voters be sure you have changed? Isn’t this new policy inconsistent with what you were proposing at the last election? Those questions were the questions of the establishment. Missing was an attack from the right. “Doesn’t Britain need lower taxes to compete with the world’s tiger economies?” “Isn’t school and hospital choice an essential way of forcing public service workers to improve their performance?”'

That's a great point. We attack dogs of the right feel muzzled by such circumvention of the political spectrum.

From there argument devolves into laundry list... but at the end the Beeb's dirty washing must produce just such, mustn't it. And he's held a few garments up to the light beforehand. So, high marks, Monty.

Well, Richard North continues to do a brilliant job of quizzing the photos of the Qana incident.

Meantime at the superbly written Augean Stables I came across a lot of great stuff, especially their demi-fisking of a Kossite contributor who has a stupid bone to pick with Dr North. The best part is that you don't actually have to read the Daily Kos to get with the latest in Left-speak, in this case the parable of the flowers and the weeds.

I loved this bit in particular:

'smintheus informs us that the rest of North’s work is “writing obsessively about inconsequential details.” This comment reveals quite nicely what happens when someone with a predisposition to reject the argument, reads uncomfortable material (like me reading tax forms)'.

You know, I rarely type this, but LOL! That's exactly what it is. The problem with the left is that they're defrauding reality, and they hate to be reminded of the fact. Of course on the right the problem is handling being correct, which is very hard to do constructively or with dignity. How exactly can one make 'liar, liar etc' sound respectful and constructive without finally sighing and saying 'oh, ok, I give in, black is white etc, whaaatever'. 'Tis a conundrum.

Update: I was pleased to find Mark Steyn taking this line on the Qana happening:

'I don’t claim to know what really happened at this season’s “massacre” – at Qana – but I do know this: it’s not what the western media reported.'

Pilate asked 'What is truth'.

Richerd A.E. North asks 'What is the truth' concerning the Qana outrage.

The 'the' here is a vital one. Pilate would have been a perfect post-modern, little bothered by matters of detail, obsessed with the effects of actions rather than their particularities and moral mechanics. He would have really taken to the idea of disproportionality: after all, what's the bottom line? How many have the Hezbullah actually killed?

Read Richard's latest post. It's a defence of asking questions, of weighing evidence.
Seeing all of the pictures together in the way Euref has assembled them stimulates the mind to think about how the scene unfolded.

From much experience we know how startlingly sympathetic much of the press is to anti-Israel terrorists like Hezbullah and Hamas. It's clear looking at the photos that they are not photos of a rescue and recovery operation, but a particularly macabre and prolonged photo opportunity for an international press baying for a ceasefire.

They of course think they are doing us good; more to the point doing the Lebanese good; but it's clear from the photos there must have been a kind of patience being exercised by all concerned while the photo ops were teed up. It's this which fertilises the suspicions. The man we see again and again is said to be Abu Shadi Jradi. This man is consistently referred to as a civil defence official by all the news reports I've seen. But what, I ask, is a 'civil defence official' in this part of Lebanon except a Hezbullah man? Why is it only he and another man of similarly authoritative appearance, mr 'white t-shirt', who are seen prominently with the bodies? Is it that they are feared or that they are trusted exclusively?

Another question (and there are many). Richard North has been informed that there is no secret regarding timestamps to photos but that reporters came from all over the world and thus their cameras were operating on different time settings. Maybe so, but this just raises the question as to how all these journalists were able to set themselves up in time to capture all these urgent scenes. No one got an exclusive, it seems, because there was zero spontaneity. They were in the hands of the local "Civil Defence Authority" aka Hezbullah.

Many have pointed out (another latest updated sceptical post) the apparent rigor mortis in some of the bodies, the lack of wounds consistent with an airstrike and building collapse, the time gap between the time the Israelis said they struck and the building collapsed. These are all good points, but I think that the extent to which the media universally got the story in a uniform way through uniform images- the clear evidence of a 'civil defence force' with everything under control except for the lifeless little bodies- makes clear to me that this news was managed. Therefore Qana can't have happened as we have been led to believe, because, as 9/11's desperation showed, as any calamitous event shows, no one can manage a true disaster- least of all the incompetents of an Islamofascist regime.

Sorry I didn't have time to post here today- but I usually have something I'd like to share with interested readers. Today it's this excellent article from a former Indian Government official on Israel's position vis a vis Hezbullah and the rest. He's both urgent in tone and knows whereof he speaks. Read it here. Taste:

"Israel is a very small country with a very small population. It has no military depth. It has to follow a policy of instant and forceful retaliation against terrorists and States such as Iran and Syria using terrorism as a weapon to make its population bleed. Israel has to retaliate instantly or perish. This has to be kept in mind while judging Israel's action in taking its fight against terrorism to the Lebanese territory. Israel had no other option, but to do what it has done."

Great article from David Warren on the Mid East situation.

Also (but you may have read it already) Melanie Phillips cuts deep, cuts true.

Can't really blame Paul Reynolds for waffling on 'in a good cause', as it were, since the BBC is more determined than a thousand Koffi Annans to see Israel acquiesce to a ceasefire that will save Hezbullah from its deserved drubbing.

Yet waffle on he does in pursuit of the idee fixee.

Meanwhile Richard from Euref brings us down to earth:

'France has decided to forego the privilege of intervening on Hezbollah’s side and announced that calls for an international force were “premature”. Germany has agreed to send some troops but only if definitely asked by both Israel and Hezbollah.

The great European foreign policy panjandrum, Javier Solana, has announced that “several European states” were ready to provide “all possible assistance” but did not specify who they were and what that assistance might consist of.'

Every sensible person wants Israel to finish the job they started- crushing Hezbullah and changing the ME balance of power vitally for the better. I hope Richard's right and the shambolic UN can kid nobody that they have a serious force available, least of all the Israelis.

Beeb autocorrects; kind of. (as do I)

Some readers might know of my more than passing interest in East Africa. For a long time this has caused me to take the threat of Islamism there quite seriously. In the battle of wills it's the one with most ambition, the most active one, which wins. Whatever you think of the half-baked analyses of radical Islam, there's no doubt about their own belief in the importance of their activities.

I recently noted the advance of Islamists in Somalia- a consolidation of their power really, since Islamists have been active there from the 90's. Now the more Islamic warlords have beaten off the less Islamic ones. And how has this been achieved? Well, in a recent news article on the subject, the Beeb wanted us to accept that

(UPDATE .... whoops- sorry to those who visited- looks like a draft slipped through by accident; I was looking for the link to support my memory of the Beeb's inadequacy, but I couldn't find it- the BBC's new search system is considerably less logical and friendly to critical enquirers. Still, I'll finish the point I began...)

They wanted us to accept that the Somali Islamic courts movement was founded on the support of "local businessmen". Yeah right I thought, and proceeded to post about Eritrea and the Horn of Africa. Now lo, but the BBC "finds out" (after the horse has bolted) that the Islamic courts seems to have support out of Saudi Arabia and, yes, Eritrea. The point is made here and here- in the kind of articles one goes to for reference rather than to form one's immediate judgement.

This situation brings me to another speculation. I remember thinking how odd the wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea have been. I have never seen a good reason for them. It might make a lot more sense when you consider that Ethiopia is the historic barrier to Islamist designs on East Africa. To find Islamists nibbling away at it to create an eastern Islamic corridor would not be at all surprising...

Amusing error of the day.

The usual lazy waffle over at the Observer, but this time with a humorous twist. The Guardianistas are vaguely conscious they need to talk about media bias, but don't realise they're it.

Cue waffle waffle waffle and then this- heh-

"The BBC is particularly sensitive to accusations of impartiality, however."

Accusing the BBC of impartiality- how ridiculous!

Allah at Hotair delivers a great thumbnail sketch of why Hezbullah have acted the way they have at the time that they have.

Where'd Aunty's Bush gaffes go?

The time was where barely a month went past without a Bush gaffe heavily publicised on the BBC. Those however were the heady days when media 'giants' like the Guardian thought they could influence the US general election by writing condescending messages of 'we know best, rebels', recommending the Boston Brahmin to the benighted untouchables of Clark county.

This week there have been two Bush 'gaffes' and it seems there's not much enthusiasm for them at the BBC anymore. Yes they covered the so-called gaffe of Bush's accidentally recorded conversation with Tony Blair- the 'Yo, Blair... if if the Syrians would only tell Hezbullah to stop this shit' conversation- but somehow without the gusto of yore. They preferred to leave it to others. Then there's the latest, the Merkel big brother massage, which seems somehow off the radar at the moment.

I would say there's more to this than just being stung by their lack of ability to harm Bush in the past, the sense that really not every right-minded person agrees that Bush's so-called gaffes indicate a man out of his depth, a hick in power. I think it's that often Bush's gaffes show how straight he is, how actually focussed he is on the things that matter such that trivia and etiquette sometimes escape him [and actually I don't think he cares awfully when they do]. Surely no-one articulated better than Bush the common man's intuition about Syria's role with Hezbullah and the rocket attacks. This is not simplistic; rather it is so well grounded it tends, like historical facts, to lack nuance. No, no, it couldn't be: Bush's gaffes help Bush. The horror, the horror.

Then there is the Merkel massage, where the lady is very comically surprised. It's a lot more tasteful and friendly than Berlusconi's attempt to machismo is way to re-relection. In fact it's so much more natural it makes you think that Bush is a person capable of restoring some humanity to politics, as well as honour. The Beeb, having been too leaden to effectively lampoon him, are now too po-faced to entertain his energetic presence. Funny that. Heaven forbid his approval ratings rise again like the phoenix.

Speaking of returning honour and humanity to politics, here's what Jacques Chirac's been up to recently- along with Vilepin that is, a fetching Muttley to Chirac's Dick Dastardly. Get that pigeon!

Update: Blame Bush investigates French initiative.

And Meanwhile... Another story that the BBC is having too busy a news weekend to mention.

Given the internationalist pretensions of the BBC, you wouldn't think a Tory councillor who had under 18 porn on his comp would merit twice the pages from a BBC search as a man who sucked on the teats of a program designed to relieve a nation's poor and young, which instead became an arm of Iraqi diplomcy and an Iraqi dictator's cash cow. Yes, we're talking Oil for Food. But so it is.

Tilting the pitch against Israel.

In so many ways the BBC have taken to misrepresenting the situation of Israel. It persistently sees israel as just a common or garden warmaker, whose warrior spirit has as its object the civilian nation of Palestinians and now Lebanese.

The headline to this article is truly foul, when looked at in the cold light of day: "Israel kills Lebanese civilians".

What country gets such media treatment that casualties of a conflict which it didn't start and hopes not to continue are regarded as its national fault?

The BBC persistently fail to menton that the hostage-taking was a deliberate infringement of terrirorial sovereignty by Hezbullah, and that it has been accompanied by an ever-present barrage of rocket attacks on Israel. This is the true cause of the current actions taken by Israel. They have stepped up nothing, contrary to BBC claims, but have had their will to self-defence tested ever more sorely by terrorists with backing from regional powerhouses like Syria and Iran.

Israel is said to have "launched a campaign". Well, that is stretching language to breaking point, as if Israel's position left it any choice. Luxury car firms and pampered western politicians 'launch campaigns'. Victims of violence and bullying don't. Apparently, according to the laughable Beeb, "Hezbollah has responded with rocket attacks". What, trying to cover up the history of Hezbullah rocket attacks, again!?When will the BBC get tired of that old Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum nursery rhyme they revert to whenever it's terrorists that are obviously guilty of targeting and harrassing Israel?

To get a flavour of what the BBC are overlooking, read this transciption of some of Ehud Olmert's recent comments, which comes via EU Ref.

That's it; I'm back. Not only from Budapest but from keyboard purdah. I bought a dirt cheap keyboard and a not as cheap splitter and voila, I can once more vent my spleen and other things.

And funnily enough I'm moved to talk about football again, and the BBC.

I was on the train last Sunday when the World Cup was being played out. I didn't fancy the Italians versus the French much anyway; one of those occasions where you wish that both sides could lose. And to my pleasure and illumination, to an extent they have.

The Italians, having used a bunch of very experienced players to elbow their way off with the prize once again, have just announced that that same set of players (give or take a few) were part of the biggest corruption scandal ever to hit football. The last few seasons, it seems, were fixed.

Mind you, I did used to wonder myself, as a Westham fan, whether we didn't occasionally throw a few games. A 4-0 abject defeat to Notts Forest many moons ago in an FA Cup Semi springs to mind, not to mention losing 4-0 to Newcastle in 1987 (or was it 86? Difficult to remember through the mists of years and tears back to my young self).

Still West Ham are just that way: always erratic, not worth betting on as a fan, anyway.

The Beeb though set this in a quite farcical context, comparing this massive and systematised fraud with all manner of relative nonentities- while never actually explaining in detail the nature of the fraud. The truth is that football, while never very clean, is now organisedly corrupt. I wouldn't be surprised to find that World Cup matches had been fixed this time round- this time more than ever before, I'd say. I watched a number of matches on the grounds that it helps me relax and only happens once every four years, and I've never seen so many bad referee's decisions that effectively cost matches. It's not just the bad decisions, its the bad application of bad laws (tackling from behind, contact in the air, challenging goalies, raised feet, offside, advantage- you name it, referees with their technocratic swagger can get it wrong these days). Brazil-Ghana with its two offside Brazilian goals and numerous decisions favourable to the yellow shirts made me despair somewhat-- but then all the matches I saw did that, including needless to say the Rooney-Portugal affair.

What I am waiting for, still, is for England to be able to take that free-kick they were given when Rooney was being manhandled (it that's the word) by three wretched Portuguese. The Ref blew his whistle and then didn't stop play, allowing the harrassment to continue- and then he over-noticed Rooney's crafty footgrind into the groin to the point that Rooney had to go. It was a classic case of the sheriff, having lost control, punishing the vigilante. And I'm all in favour of vigilanteism where the technocrats have 'command' (so to speak), so I was, as they say, 'gutted'.

The thing is that the whole event was so scripted it's as if give or take a couple of dummies who don't know their place in the scheme of things (like Rooney), everyone was doing what they were paid to do- not so much play football but fail at the appropriate places and times. Zidane's headbutt actually made me laugh; who can think of a better explanation than that Zidane was paid to do it like some WWWF wrestler?

What I am saying is not restricted to the traditional idea of the crude attempts of the Grobbelaars of this world to make a few bucks: I am saying that the monetisation of a game whose participants never had too much integrity (and didn't need to have, really) has created layer upon layer of grubby control placed upon the free play of football- which is, after all, just a game and unable to bear the stress of the grown-up kids with their money manias.

One final thing: all the focus has been on the referees so far, regarding the verdicts. I absolutely don't believe that it is restricted to referees and senior management. The players too must have some degree of involvement. At the very least one can see the money they demand as an incentive to play as a kind of extortion.

Such a sketchy blogger recently.

I'm blogging this from Budapest, where I have gone for a quick getaway. The weather is amazing, thanks. My laptop remains unfixed but internet cafes are so cheap here the only thing holding me back is the need to enjoy this city before I leave. The Jewish quarter is crumbling but reviving itself year by year it seems (I came last summer and I feel convinced it is developing), with the largest Synagogue in Europe. That's the area where I am right now, salivating gently at the thought of my evening meal, and whether it's to be Jewish in character or not. I will fix the laptop situation, and a will not be permanently absent. Budapest is great. Prague is better. Thank you, and good evening.

...And meanwhile, the aforeblogged Mr Fawkes has been sending out tottie reporters. What on earth! I could add to my tourist update by stating that anything London parties can do, Budapest can do better. At the spa on St Margaret's island yesterday, for instance. (see earlier comment for Prague comparison- though there are no spas there)

But back in the real world (ie. the geeky newsy bloggy one), I was fascinated by this story about the London bombers. Could be that Al Qaeda's not so much a nightmare but more a reality, after all.

See you soon.

You can tell it is a big story because Nick Robinson is ignoring it - the Beeb knows this could be fatal for Prezza.

Guido Fawkes

It's a sideshow, I know, but I was struck by the following two articles and have been meaning to share them for a good few days now. I'll generally read anything by PJ O'Rourke, even when it's about Airbus as in this case.

Airbus is one of those typical head in the clouds European Grand Projets- which is not to say it's useless, just hobbled rather by the nature of the grand political design instead of liberated by free cooperation on technical matters.

ps. Still trying to deal with my keyboard situation; an accident with tea I'm afraid. The laptop's a bit old and round here I haven't yet found a motherboard suitable to replace it. I still have many things I'd like to talk about, but my opportunities to write using a keyboard are bit limited.

Had an accident with my keyboard, which is a pity as I had a lot to say. Now operating on alien territory where I don't even know how to open two pages at once. If you want a good read on the subject of the Palestinian beach bombing, follow my link in the sidebar to Tom Gross, and check out his latest dispatches. Fascinating stuff. I'll be back asap, meanwhile.

One shouldn't mock at senior citizens but I do find the
BBC'sJohn Simpson's contributions ever more out of touch. The headline which drew me in to his latest suggested that the killings at Haditha could change the future of the war in Iraq.

It's the Left's own very personal turning point. Never mind the killing of Zarkarwi (let's forget that, soonest). The US, apparently, is 'braced' for the Haditha effect. Well actually, the US is long past 'braced'. If Simpson spent an iota of time on the Internet he would be aware that John 'Haditha' Murtha has been under pressure ever since his comments regarding Haditha. America was 'braced' back then. Michelle Malkin and others have been 'bracing', mitigating, and judging the prejudgers ever since, and to great effect, I would say.

The folly of Simpson is clear in his final line, which you sense all his journalistic juices and prejudices have been yearning for:

'Just as they did in Vietnam.'

(ok, it's not 'just like Vietnam!!!', it's the 'measured', 'balanced' BBC version.)

Meanwhile, BITRW, incidents like this one, killing and capturing terrorists without civilian casualties:

'Several women and children were present at the raid sites, officials said. None was harmed, and all were returned to their homes once the troops ensured the area was secure, they added.' (hat tip to Instapundit)

A Football Story...

Apologies for the last couple of days being without posts. There are a couple of excuses but the summary point is that I was having fun, outside mainly.

Part of this has to do with the fact that I've been entertaining family and doing my tour-guide impression on the streets and trams of Prague, and part of it is to do with football; part is owing to the delicious weather at the moment, and some more to do with trying to maintain a social existence. Oh, and I mustn't omit, work too!

Yesterday I set off with a segment of my family round Prague, and we ended the day at cellar level in a traditional Prague pub- a bad choice for dinner as the national side were about to kick off. Knowing the menu to be totally obscure- all boar's knee and sow's ear-lobe- I asked for an English menu. Sadly with all the misty-eyed patriotism it seemed, errm, that they couldn't find it, so we struggled. As did the Czech football team.

We ate while craning our necks to see the big screen in one direction, and in the other trying to gain the waiter's attention for our small requirements, in between mouthfuls. By the time we left the match was almost over. Drama galore in Germany and the Czesi one-nil down and ten men strong. We strolled to the old town square. A roar erupted from its packed historic centre, but it was a small eruption which soon subsided and never quite rose to the pitch occupied by Czech national fervour. 2-0.

Oops. But the story that has helped me over the brotherly sympathy I tend to have for disappointed Czechs is that a courageous Ghanaian player made a tiny little gesture in the heart of Euroland. Making good a promise he waved an Israeli flag on the occasion of their first goal, identifying with the people among whom he makes his professional living. Good match.

Two Bits from Europe.

It's a struggle out there. I have a friend married to a Belgian, so I get a few updates about the country. Did you know there are only just over 500 homeschooled children in Belgium? Paul Belien and wife have been doing their best, but the Belgian State's distrust of homeschoolers is startling, as their latest troubles prove.

Fjordman, who comes from... well it's fairly clear roughly where, meditates on the ideological origins of Europe's malaise in Gramsci. He takes a global view though, and his perspective ends up focussing on North America, as the grand ideological battle ground.

The BBC's Rush to Judgements.

As Andrew noted on Biased BBC, the BBC offered widespread coverage to the immediate assumption of Israeli responsibility for the deaths on a Gaza beach on Friday.

The BBC have naturally reported the subsequent Israeli rebuttals. There is a subtle difference though in reporting claims that the deaths were 'not Israel's fault', as the BBC headlines, rather than as the Washington Post reports, not their 'responsibility', but I could let that pass. I could point out though that 'responsibility' is strictly accurate: Israel is not saying that the deaths were a regrettable side effect of an action that could be justified, but that they weren't involved. This is different from, say, a terror organisation admitting responsibility but claiming that the deaths were the fault of their belligerent opponents rather than themselves. It's a somewhat fine distinction, but such is language, and such is the news. I appreciate that with the BBC's global role they would seek a form of 'Easy English', the better to spread their gospel, no doubt, but the distinctions must be, not just observed, but promulgated.

[Update 14/6: Unsurprisingly, the BBC article has now been edited to include the term 'not responsible', along with other edits. That's how it works, folks]

Anyway, more serious is the typical BBC cutting down of a public and official statement to a set of empty soundbytes, when a perfectly clear and good quote is ignored. The WaPo reports:

'"We checked each and every shell that was fired from the sea, the air and from the artillery on the land and we found out that we can track each and every one according to a timetable and according to the accuracy of where they hit the ground.

"We are very sorry for the deaths of the seven Palestinians, but that
does not mean that we are responsible,"'

The BBC message is by comparison garbled by the range of pressure groups they quote first, from the totally unbiased Human Rights Watch to Kofi Annan to the Palestinian 'authority'. Finally we get to the Israelis and their bald denial accompanied by the innuendo that 'they did not say what might have caused the blast.' and another fine bulky quote from those military experts at Human Rights Watch.

I am not sure, but if the Israelis were not involved I see no reason for them to try to unravel the secrets of the latest blockbuster from Pallywood's snuff industry. The BBC would had done much better by quoting the Israelis and their detailed explanation- but instead they preferred 'balance' after their own fashion. I would support any real investigative journalism that factually contradicted the Israeli statement, but I cannot condone this journalism by insinuation and biased quotage from people who already have more than their say on things they are not in a position to know.

And by the way, the BBC have helpfully pointed out that this biased and slanted story is their world number one today, which just goes to show that, as Gerald Ratner might metaphorically say, crap 'sells'. It would be interesting to see if it actually did.

If you have just a little time, give it to reading this Mark Steyn essay. On Somalia, topic of the post below, he parodies the Liberal-Left:

'And in Mogadishu, well, that's just one bunch of crazy Africans killing another bunch of crazy Africans -- who the hell can figure that out? If Bono holds a celebrity fund-raising gala, we'll all be glad to chip in 20 bucks.'

incoming... long post

Recently I bookmarked Eritrea...

I've long been concerned about East Africa. I went to what could be considered the wild heart of the region, the Highlands of Kenya, towards the end of the nineties, and spent perhaps the most deeply impressing few months of my life there- six of them, to be precise.

It was World Cup time when I left for Africa on Air France via Charles De Gaulle, after the previous night watching a French victory mainly achieved by black men, and we had the Euro by the time I returned- or rather, part of the Continent of Europe did. In between times there was the bomb attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi and Bill Clinton's missile attack retaliation against Afghanistan and Sudan.

I remember these events because I listened most evenings to the BBC world service, and I could concentrate on what I was hearing without too much distraction. There was barely enough light even to read, and the evenings were consistently lengthy, with the onset of darkness anytime between 6.45 and 8 O'clock leaving plenty of time for the oil lamps to burn in earnest, and the radio to receive full attention.

No-one I knew then could understand for the life of them why that schmaltzy philanderer Clinton should cause his missiles to penetrate such distant and alien nations as Sudan and Afghanistan. In fact they were rather angry with him, despite the major death toll among Kenyans -many of the 220 plus victims were Kenyan- in the blast. I bet they understand better now, when the perpetrators of the bombing are more widely known and understood.

The backdrop to these events though was also interesting. I became aware, in my fastness of the north-western hills (mountains in actuality, though scarcely comparable with their European cousins), of a steady pressure, a drum beat almost, coming from Islam in the North and heading Southwards. There were reports of conversions taking place of Christians to Islam, of Islamic polygamy; I sensed that Islam was starting to stir in the region.

This sense was confirmed in Nairobi. Among the reasons for the extensive migration from the North East of Kenya was certainly the instability caused by the breakdown of order in Somalia, and this has consistently had an Islamic component, maybe even an Al Qaeda component. Immigrants to Nairobi from the North East and from Somalia filled the slums of the city, but, even among these, those who left the faith of Islam were hunted down by armed gangs of Somali Islamists.

There has been a strong Islamic component to the unrest in Somalia for well over a decade now, so it's not really surprising that a group of Islamists has coordinated itself to 'take over' Mogadishu. But it is alarming and interesting simultaneously.

Somalia is an interesting country, racially and geographically. The appearance of Somalis, with wiry swirling hair, skinny frames and the sharp features of their faces, is quite different from that of the people further to the south.

Geographically Somalia hugs the East Coast of Africa and almost touches the tip of Yemen at its northernmost point, which makes it an ideal through-road for Arab, predominantly Saudi, influence.

I am interested to place the Islamist takeover in a little more context; I can only see it as part of its region, and subject to the regional ambitions of the most vigorous creed in the market at the moment: Islam.

I have heard quite a lot of wailing that the US was supporting warlords in Somalia to fight the rising Islamist camp there. I'd heard it on the BBC, and found a number of liberal media outlets wailing about it. Of much more interest to me though is the question of who is supporting the Islamists.

The most vigorous regional power at the moment, although it is of North Eastern Africa, is Sudan.

I was interested today to learn from the BBC about the President of Chad's version of how the Sudanese were sponsoring armed rebellion against his regime.

The BBC helpfully pointed out that 'in fact, according to the United Nations refugee agency, both countries openly support rebel activities against the other.

Well thanks Aunty, but it might be significant that the Chadian population is estimated at under ten million, while the Sudanese population is over four times that, and Sudan is Africa's largest country. It also has around nine times the military expenditure of Chad. Not sure whether that includes the Jangaweed.

The point is that Sudan's interference is potentially much more consequential than Chad's.

I think what I am getting at is quite simple: there is a strategy to extend Islamic domination across North-East and Eastern Africa (there's one for West Africa too, and that is focussed on Nigeria). It's summarised quite effectively by this post from Jihad Watch. In this schema, Ethiopia is seen as the stumbling block to Islamic ambition, just as it historically has been. It is however a mouldering stumbling block, both due to its poverty and the fact that nowadays upwards of 50% of its population are Muslim.

But if we look to Ethiopia's east we can see that ringing it are a series of smaller nations: Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia. Of these only Eritrea is pluralistic in its religious beliefs; the others are Muslim, although even in Eritrea Muslims are easily the largest single grouping. Significantly, towards the coast Eritrea is mainly Muslim. Coming back to the question of who has backed the Islamist takeover in Somlia, there are any number of candidates, but this corridor of Islamic opportunity down the East Coast is certainly a likely source of support.

I suppose I imagine that one of the goals of the Islamic war on the West is to secure for itself large regions which make good nestbeds for its operatives and schemes, where a civilian population can be a cost-free shield, where the use of conventional weapons would create only pin-pricks in a territory that an invading ground force would find forbidding and vast. The East African Caliphate would represent all of that.

The Jordanian and the President Agree.

That is to say, A Jordanian victim of Zarqawi and the President of the USA:

'He said U.S. special operations forces confirmed Zarqawi's location based on intelligence from Iraqis and "delivered justice to the most wanted terrorist in Iraq."'


'"I felt God has brought His heavenly justice on earth today."'

Here's the victim's tale.

Yay. And here's a better link, for a round up.

I had the killer post and then the key board jammed. Honest. (I would have posted the last couple of days but a frenzy of busyness combined with general lack of time to think held me back)

Well, actually I didn't, but Scott Burgess has a fairly-likely-to-cause-death post which I was going to link, and pontificate on.

The target is a Guardianista, naturally, who thinks only white people can be racist. Leave aside the fact that I dispute the existence of a thing called racism, preferring to think instead about crimes that are visited by one person upon another, it's still predictably bizarre to think that, as Scott points out the Guardianista thinks, Mugabe (to take one instance) can't have racist politics because he's black.

The real problem I have is with the future, rather than the past. If the Guardianista's position becomes the accepted one in a globalised world where white westerners have squandered their headstarts, whichever people of colour who come to dominate would have a made-to-measure argument for de facto racism: revenge for unjust humiliation. I don't, you see, have any sense that we whites really are racially superior: we're just quite inclined (a thing historically attested to) to get things together with limited resources. In a future where togetherness is assumed and resources unlimited because of man's established ingenuity, who knows? Maybe it'll be fun to be really racist, for some.

Though no Hirsi Ali watcher, I do begin to believe that I've underplayed her virtues. This interview with a pretty fine writer, Carlin Romano, does come with obligatory star quality, but I love the way her mind ranges across so many subjects and zeros in on them all. And she calls a certain nonagenarian orientalist 'Bernard'.

Entertainment aside, this is a great piece of commentary on the Haditha situation (a link which came, like many such good things, from Glenn Reynolds).

Online Entertainment.

Not only do I live outside the UK, I also have no TV. Were it not that the internet is increasingly providing multi-media, that situation would have to change.

I think though that having a TV as well as the internet might well give too much of a good thing. Instead, the good things- and in my view the better things, things that I can really personally endorse- are to be found online.

There have been some terrific podcasts and vlogs that I've tuned into recently.

Ever heard Mark Steyn speak? Well, his interviews are always well worth the time, and his latest with Hugh Hewitt can be downloaded here.

The most recent two 'Vents' from Michelle Malkin show the potential for independent journalism and grass roots awarenss that Vlogs can offer- the earlier one (1st June) was about social action against illegal workers, Dunkin' Donuts style. Yesterday's was about media news 'management'- a subject of great interest to me.

Meanwhile, I do think David Vance's presentation of his Vlog has potential cult-value, as well as being powerful, direct and correct.

But I should give a nod to the printed word, since that is enduringly important. Nathalie Solent is back good and proper, and really funny. The in-jokes tend to make her hard to quote- you'll just have to READ IT.

Reason to suspect...

The politicisation of the BBC is on full display at the moment. I do not refer to a Right or Left division, but to the naked desire to influence political events. Not any particular events that I can think of, such as an election, but simply the way things unfold in a country where all our political interests are invested- Iraq.

According to people such as Peter Glover, the BBC's treatment of the alleged Haditha killings has been appalling.

What I think is clear is that, as with Abu Graib, though I would say with a little more substance to work with, the BBC is both pre-emptively judging one incident, and integrating it into a large and long-running news item. Both are inappropriate in the extreme when the organisation is the British Broadcasting Corporation.

It angered me in particular to find a 'new' incident roped into the coverage. It should, of course, be dealt with, but the snowballing of disparate incidents into a frontpage avalanche is totally wrong when both cases are still alleged, when enquiries are ongoing, and when a process of justice, if required, has yet to take place.

But worse is the BBC's conflation of these issues in accordance with the wishes of both the anti-war lobby and the so-called insurgents, as exemplified by Ian Pannel in the above-linked report:

'The news of ethical training for US-led troops is likely to be greeted with cynicism by many Iraqis, the BBC's Ian Pannell in Baghdad says, as the troops have long been accused of deliberately targeting civilians.'


Well, I do not believe this journalism and I consider it poisonous. I do not believe the Iraqi people generally believe themselves targeted by American troops. We have thousand upon thousand of photos and anecdotes to demonstrate that Iraqi children often make a bee-line for US troops on patrol, in the hope of sweets usually. The Iraqi people may be cynical because shit happens, unfortunately, but they are unlikely to feel that Don Rumsfeld sent a memo decreeing their extermination wherever possible.

The BBC's conflation of accident with indiscipline, indiscipline with intent, intent with policy, is journalistically totally indefensible in my view- and mirrors what they attempted to do with Abu Graib, as they tried to shift the blame higher and higher and have never apologised or shown the slightest backtracking from the position that Abu Graib was part of a systematic US torture network. The BBC however is not thinking about journalism, true or false, but about exerting influence- and that is the problem.

Free Speech and Consequences

Have you seen how a disabled US Iraq veteran is suing Michael Moore for mispresenting him and exploiting his wounds during the making of Fahrenheit 9/11?

Well, maybe you haven't because I see nothing about it on the BBC. The BBC's coverage of the film when it was released in the run up to the US election in 2004 was fulsome, but it seems that after selling a story dearly they don't concern themselves about aftersale care.

This was a man whose very real trauma and experience of war was misrepresented and abused by a so-called champion of dissent.

The BBC though are ploughing on with the theme that Bush represses free speech by giving this move against whistle-blowers a lot of exposure.

The fact that the same wave of enthusiasm for Michael Moore swept along a raft of other 'leaks' that were politically motivated seems to be beyond their comprehension. Politically motivated whistle-blowers are anti-democratic and endanger their society for the sake of self interest or ideological gratification. But then, I suppose the saying is fairly true that birds of a feather flock together.

Update 1st June: The BBC reach the story... after I do... and do quite a business-like job of reporting the case. Saying that, I think that the case is not as clearly presented as it should be- the reason for the suit is the alleged misrepresentation of the plaintiff's views and situation, rather than failure to gain his consent. Since the BBC don't do court reports, I would expect the general interest angle to be pursued, and that is most certainly that Moore is a lying sack of... [insult to taste]. I didn't see it anywhere near the headlines either, unlike Moore's success.

A Shiver Through Fairy-Land

On Iranian Badges: the National Post apologises, as Melanie Phillips reports,

'for the mistake and for the consternation it has caused not just National Post readers, but the broader public who read the story.'

But surely such consternation could only be found among those living in liberal fairy-land, where innuendo is read into each word of each speech of those purporting to represent the Right, while prescriptive Islamofascists have to make it really, really clear in big bold colours that they're the big bogeymen before notice is taken?

What kind of a Government legislates a dress code anyway (which they certainly are doing)? Anyone with the slightest understanding of legislation and the machinations of governments should have seen immediately the nature of the case, and the National Post should have been savvy enough to phrase their report artfully to straddle a number of possibilities. However, that said, readers have no reason to cry out: they read between the lines all the time when it suits them. The real reason is that it sends a shiver through fairy-land.

Spinning Iran, yet again: Iraq the Model catches CNN out good and proper.

Today I've been reading Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush (via Hugh Hewitt) and it's fascinating stuff. I found this understanding of it very direct and helpful, too.

Revealed: Journalism is a very competitive business. To see who can get away with being laziest.

Wuzzadem has a classic 'journalists proved wrong seeking easy way out (again)' moment. You may not have heard of the latest bogus anti-war Iraq veteran, but the story is very instructive, though it will probably not come as a Shock.

Interesting article from Douglas Murray for the Social Affairs Unit on the departure of Hirsi Ali from Holland. Some interesting observations on the BBC's coverage of the situation, too.

The most worth a click blogger I know.

That would be Tim Blair, whose latest is an extended piece on a curious case of alleged plagiarism which really isn't. The alleged culprit is Mark Steyn, and what adds spice for me is that the article concerned was one of my favourite ones of recent times: Steyn's take-down of the Da Vinci Code. This book's popularity and its now-attendant film have been irritatingly sweeping back and forth across Europe in waves dashed only by a veritable Rorke's Drift of critics. Frankly who cares if the valiant defenders share weapons?

Ali on the telly: a number of good points made to Jon Snow. I guess it was conducted at an earlier stage but I think it illustrates that there has been an organised opposition to her- or at least that has been her awareness. I'm sure she's right about that.

Back to Hirsi Ali, and so on

Alison at Making Headlines has a very interesting post on the topic.

There are lots of things I could say about it. One though is that my scepticism about Europe's future is not a judgement on the moral values of the people: it's simply based on observations about political change, the liveliness of the expression of civilisational values in Europe, and demography. Ultimately there's a moral dimension, but that's not important when one is merely making observations.

That any citizen in Europe is forced into isolation and has to be guarded against minority fanatics is a scandal. Each death threat letter or threatening phone call is a crime. The criminals should be chased and harried and made example of. That's the only way law works; yet if we fail to impose the law the fanatics have an alternative for us, concerning which a recent Dutch Government report suggested the Dutch become less 'spastic': Sharia law.

Back to the Beeb soon.

Crash Course in Blogging Available for free...

Just read about Polly and her commenters (nb. Tim Worstall's contributions especially noteworthy)

The Real Iraq: Amir Taheri reports back for Commentary, and it's not BBC-approved stuff I can assure you. Of the gloom and doom, he says

'It would be hard indeed for the average interested citizen to find out on his own just how grossly this image distorts the realities of present-day Iraq.'

And his conclusion:

'Is Iraq a quagmire, a disaster, a failure? Certainly not; none of the above. Of all the adjectives used by skeptics and critics to describe todays Iraq, the only one that has a ring of truth is messy. Yes, the situation in Iraq today is messy. Births always are. Since when is that a reason to declare a baby unworthy of life?'

(trying to make time to post more, but I'm pretty busy)


In the end, too much effort required.

That might not be the right interpretation of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's decision to leave Holland, since she has certainly been pursued by the idiot pols (and stoopid media) who govern there. However, as a non-native, why should she fight for a people who not only don't value her, but make her life more difficult and more frightening than it should be?

I was interested in her personal account of her flight from fate. She was forcibly married and taken from her home in Nairobi (she was a Somali refugee at the time it seems- which is one controversy, as she claimed in the immigration forms to have fled direct from Somalia). It was there, some years after she left for Canada and ended up in Holland via Germany, (late nineties) that I met many Somalians and heard how their lives were under threat from Islamism: mainly because they had renounced Islam and adopted Christianity under the influence of their host nation. I also encountered many stories of quite horrendous forced marriages, even among apparently respectable people (and Islam tended to allow for polygamy, as an added twist). Meanwhile there were accounts of armed Somali-Islamist gangs roaming the streets in trucks aiming to track down and kill apostates, and sometimes succeeding.

But isn't it ironic that Ayaan's critics accuse her of lying when in fact it is merely their cultural ignorance that prevents them from seeing that in recording her name as Ali she was just drawing on one of the many names with which her culture had endowed her? The multi-culti society knows little about traditional cultures. I wonder how many immigrants get into and stay in the West due to outright lies rather than artful half-truths? Surely Ali's main crime has been attempting to live truthfully and potently on the back of (at worst, in my view) a few paltry half-truths, rather than skulking and absorbing the benefits of an outright lie. Outright lies the pols can cope with as they're ok with that; as long as the immigrant keeps a low profile, only mugging the odd old lady or raping a young tart or, in the female case, goes on the game herself, that's ok.

Faced with such out-of-touchness and crass double-standards I'd be very willing to agree that Holland will never, by itself and under her influence, 'get it'. She is better casting her bread upon the waters.

Wikipedia's account is bang up to date and worth reading.

Oppose terror in principle and practise: DV sets the Ulster Unonist party straight.

And the link to the below is... this


Is it possible to have an immigration policy that stems abuse while allowing compassionate asylum and sensible population circulation?

I'd say so. I have a list of questions in my mind which I'd like to ask, including whether we prioritise our former colonies (which I should know but don't; I suspect not really any longer, which would be irrational if so), and exactly what questions are asked and what requirements made. Funny how we never really get the chance to find out. It's quite Yes Ministerish when you go to the Home Office site (caution: the "Directorate" loads slowly) and find out just how many amendments are being continually made to the rules. There's no sense of principle, only pettiness. Pretty much off the cuff I'd say that our problem lies in a system relying on the alien principle of 'rules' rather than the kind of evolutionary, flexible principles which make our common law work. I'd say why not allow for a branch of home grown law to grow up on the subject, giving access to courts where something like a CPS for immigrants considered a case uncertain and meriting legal examination? That's probably quite a silly idea but seems appealing to me rather than the bureaucratic morass and opaqueness of the current situation.

The US situation is different to the UK's, but if you're looking for an expert on the situation Michelle Malkin has some definite attributes. And she can vent on the subject, too. Fine rant indeed.

By a kind of serendipity, I read within the space of a half hour both this post about the necessity of being guided by laws rather than ruled by them, and news of calls made for Ayaan Hirsi Ali to be deported from Holland for lying in her asylum application.

The real gravity of nazism comes across loud and clear in this recently discovered BBC broadcast from Belsen in 1945, while today's BBC meanwhile are tracing castles in the air, pursuing mirages, and ignoring reality.


Three dimensions missing from the one dimensioned BBC.

When the BBC report 'Far right ties in Belgian murders' they are misleading readers. Rather than any direct political link what they have to report is only 'family ties'- in other words that the murder's family includes members of the (banned) so-called right-wing party Vlaams Bloc and its legal successor Vlams Belang.

The BBC go on to report how the 18 yr old murderer's father took part in the formation of 'anti-immigration party Vlaams Blok'. What they don't point out is that the fundamental principle of this party is Flemish separatism, and that this party was declared illegal in Belgium (information here). They do manage to report that its successor-party, Vlaams Belang, was successful in elections in 2004 but kept from power by a coalition opposed to it.

Three dimensions are to my mind inappropriate:

1)The focus on family connections. It's unusual in murder cases to drag the family in (certainly pre-trial). It's surely unproven that his family's beliefs bear a direct relation to the occasion of the murders. It's surely offensive that the search for causes precedes the establishment of the legal facts, and more to the point it becomes politically and legally prejudicial.

2)The failure, in the context, to highlight that the murderer's uncle was co-founder of a party (Vlaam's Blok) declared illegal by Belgian courts. The murderer's connections were outlawed before he turned outlaw in his behaviour, it would seem. If we want to go into root causes it might be interesting to examine the consequences of having one's relatives declared criminal by court ruling. The BBC describe instead the 'now defunct' Vlaams Blok party.

3)The tying together of these murders with another recent incident:

'The killings follow an attack last Saturday in the city of Bruges, in which a black Frenchman was left in a coma after being beaten up by a group of skinheads.'

There is almost certainly no organisational link. There may be no ideological link. The murderer with so-called far right ties wasn't very careful in his choice of targets, including a white baby among his victims. Really, who knows if his motive was really racial, despite what he says. Normally we wait for psychological reports. In this case the BBC (and Belgian pols) waste no time in setting this within the grand narrative of the scourge of far right racism.

The absence of faithfulness to detail and interest in specifics makes this BBC report prisoner and prison-warder to a political agenda; the kind of soft-left take on things which dominates the media. I am clear in my own mind that there is no great right wing conspiracy to persecute non-white races, yet the BBC acts as though there were. This is a great disservice to truth, and to the people who pay for their services.

Mel says it all.

I've been meaning to get around to reading the report to the BBC Governors on the BBC's coverage of the Arab-Israeli situation, but Melanie Phillips has read it and comments

'Beneath all the strenuous striving to appear to be seated on the Mt Parnassus of dispassionate judgment, the panel cannot help revealing evidence of the very same partial mindset displayed by the BBC.'

Sounds about right.

(I'm back)

Parallels

You can tell a lot from parallels. Often we miss them, and only vaguely later we realise there is some shocking symmetry in social trends.

Take the life sentence imposed on Zacharias Moussawi, which Peter Glover comments on powerfully- as does Mark Steyn. It's just over a year since the death of Terri Schiavo.

Or, on a smaller scale, take the case of the man manhandled by numerous armed police (arrested in front of his grandchildren and held for five hours) for pinging the back leg of a dog threatening his sheep. That was the sensitivity of Bedfordshire police in action.

And its exponents are police officers from a force who will have read their instructions about dealing sensitively with the muslim community by taking off their shoes and not interrupting prayers when entering muslim homes.