Wisdom on Sharon.

A rare quality, but I think Amir Taheri shows it. This article is as shrewd a an analysis as any I've read. Taheri himself is a quite remarkable person, and he seems to understand something about Sharon, how he realised that

'For a war to be won it is not enough for one side to claim victory, although that is essential. It is also necessary for one side to admit defeat.'

(ps I think 'The Australian' may just be one of the Anglosphere's best newspapers, judging from the frequency with which I visit for a useful article.)

Of course, the sacrifice in Iraq (see below post) isn't without cause. I've been linking Stephen Hayes for years. He's dogged, and he's good, and I think those are the qualities that are needed. Here's another piece, on Saddam's terrorist links, and I look forward to many other rewards of his diligence.

'Meanwhile, a French engineer kidnapped by an insurgent group in December has been released, Iraqi security officials and the French government confirmed on Sunday.'

Oh glory.

Some backdrop, I think, here.

Sharon

To me this fellow towers above the news items around at the moment. I really wish him well.

It's interesting how Sharon managed to combine eclectic elements of policy- angering everybody and fully reassuring almost none- with becoming a political phenomenon able to say 'today, I will form a new political party', with every chance of having done so effectively had the flesh not proved too weak.

It could seem almost banal to say that one supported him, in this context. His support seems to have come from the man on the street rather than from any political creed or group.

But I think the man on the street had a point.

Sharon was anti-factional but patriotic. He was pragmatic but he wanted to win.

He managed to kill the leadership of his foes, build a kind of Berlin wall against them, reduce their efforts to kill Israelis to a point where their own murderous infighting was producing more body bags that the war they were supposedly waging against Israel, and yet gain an unprecedented hearing among people home and abroad.


There are some very interesting pieces about Sharon at the moment; as usual I think they are ambivalent at best. Everyone always has some major 'con' to put alongside the 'pros', which seems to me almost contrarian.

Atlas Shrugs' Doctor Nancy makes the classic error of think that any kind of land concession by Israel was indicative of defeatism. She thinks Sharon was hamstrung by the reluctance of Israelis to shoulder the consequences of a hardline stance.

Daniel Pipes is even more critical, accusing Sharon of 'monumental mistakes' with the Gaza pullout foremost among them.

Meryl Yourish, however, points to Ariel Sharon's last interview at the head of his country. In it, Sharon lays down the law concerning the state of Israel in relation to the Palestinians.

What's striking is the iron-like grip Sharon maintained on these issues. There's an absolute and historically informed clarity in what he's saying. It all turns upon patriotism and the awareness of the hurts that have been visited upon the State of Israel in seeking its annihilation.

What I think is clear is this: Sharon's a winner, and he wanted to win for Israel its security and its integrity as a nation. How hard is that to love?

One interesting blog I found as well on Sharon examined his military career, preferring to concentrate on that. Well, I don't think it ever stopped, but I was struck by these words Ben Gurion had for Sharon:

'The only thing that matters is that we can exist here on the land of our forefathers. And unless we show the Arabs that there is a high price to pay for murdering Jews, we won't survive.'

I think that's what Sharon was zeroed on. Everything else was sound and fury.

Two small nuggets. It's often hard to find out the BBC in big whopping lies, while to parse their articles can be likewise onerous on writer and demanding on reader.

So I have two small points to make:

This BBC article on the French very riot-like behaviour not only says that the riots had fizzled out several months back, it also describes the torching of 400 cars on New Year's Eve as representing a 'small rise' on the previous French hogmanay's festivities.
On the other hand this article describes how carbeques were up by one third on the previous year.

Basically it's the usual BBC love-in with the French establishment, and the PC willingness to overlook the crimes and misdemeanours of certain potentially religiously motivated groups. One thought I had about this recently: if it's ok for muslims to lie to dhimmies, is it ok for them, say, to drink in order to create the impression that they are disadvantaged youths recklessly rebelling? That would of course only be possible if they really intended some harm to the West, and had a strategy of sorts.

Anyway, the second nugget is where Paul Reynolds, analysing the great Ariel Sharon's legacy, which may well be sadly fixed at some time soon, gives the Palestinian point of view:

'They remember his role as the defence minister who allowed the Phalange into the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in 1982 and who was forced to resign after those massacres after being criticised by the Kahan Commission.'

I am prepared to say that is in at least one respect (that of criticism) strictly true, and of course Reynolds has covered himself with the reference to how the Palestinians remember him. However, it would have been a lot more instructive to have reported, as this ally of Sharon's does, that Sharon was held 'indirectly responsible' for the massacres. 'Indirectly responsible' is the kind of fact I would like newspapermen to bear in mind in their reporting: it's the kind of 'indirect responsibility' which has seen Koffi Annan sail through his scandal over Oil-for-Food. So far that indirect responsibility has been uppermost in the minds of BBC journalists reporting Mr Annan. It doesn't appear to register in Sharon's favour in this case.

Meanwhile the BBC's still in PC heaven:

Chirac's backing down on a so-called 'colonial law' - so the Beeb are quite excited. Thus they let doddering Chirac spout:

"France has set an example by being the first country in the world - and still the only one today - to recognise slavery as a crime against humanity. I have decided to establish a day of remembrance in France."

It's a difficult lie to parse, since technically they did outlaw slavery for a while after the revolution (don't know how effectually). The present perfect is a tad off-putting; I am sure that's not deliberate. But I don't suppose Chirac will ever get round to saying that Napoleon reinstated slavery, and it lasted almost half a century afterwards. Come to think of it, it's doubtful that in euphoric mood the BBC will bother to explain either. It must be Chirac's du bist la France moment.

Recommended Reading.

Anthony Browne, simply. And of course Steyn on Demography, Europe and the Islamists. If I could link Roger Kimball I would, as his Criterion piece was excellent too. I think in Browne (as linked by Stephen Pollard), we come very close to the reality of things in the UK; as I've known them and as I feel them to be. I don't know if I will buy it. Maybe I should; but I know this stuff- know it factually, test it with a modest sort of empiricism- it's the believing that's the hard part, and that Browne helps instill.

The bit that struck me most of what I've read was where Browne reports the suppression of a report by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia; or rather, the re-writing of it to blame white skinheads for anti-Jewish acts, rather than the Muslims identified by the report as the most significant element.

So, a supposedly respectable trans-national agency lies to preserve its PC agenda. That's no surprise, but it should be if they were at all worthy of respect. However, instead of being discredited, what happened? Well, in the UK, the media split:

The Independent reported 'White men blamed as attacks on Jews rise'.

The Telegraph approached the real story that was there to be told. Approached, I say, because there seems to have been no real sense of scandal.

The will to negate the real story of the world's developments is extraordinary. Suicidal even.

Most individuals think a bit before they lie; usually work a little to avoid it, and if they do regret it just a bit. But in Britain the media quite literally thinks nothing of lying to force its mentality upon its readership. Papers like the Telegraph are no paragons; there can't be any when things go so far down that lying is a community journalistic activity- part of the scenery, going with the territory.

People are often pretty nasty, but usually lack organisation. The media in the UK however has organised its rhetorical turf and meanders round the boundaries seeking ways of extending it (the Telegraph occupies a slighty nicer bit of turf, as does the Guardian in its own way. The BBC? They are like some higher former of mafia, with access to all turfs, able to look infinitely more respectable while, whenever they really want to, orchestrating quietly). I often recommend articles not out of any faith in the media, but because somehow they delineate this turf war in a comfortingly close approximation to the reality. So it is with Browne- but it's a very close approximation in this case.

Another of those exotic young things.... The BBC has been highlighting the account of former Palestinian hostage Kate Burton.

Of course they're keen to give us the background: she 'grew up in Belgium', she 'speaks Arabic'. Ah, perfect, perfect. She's well, a young female 'human rights worker'. Maybe she even speaks arabic in a non-laughable way.

I am sure many of us just think: Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall... Kate Burton- another (we are coached to think) telegenic product of one of the (if not the) great causes of our time. True, she worked for a slightly more academic organisation than Hurndall and Corrie (there is an aside on the website about sewage issues, for instance) but it is no different in outlook, only in tone.

According to the BBC she's even human: she 'lost it' with the hostage takers. But they just leave it in this picturesque celluloid ether waiting for the obligatory film director's interest.

The fact is though there are ample facts missed out by the BBC (and others, but the BBC gives her the sought-after formal gloss- nice pic, btw). Human Rights worker she may have been, but for which humans' rights? A run-through of the statements at the website of her Al Mezan 'employers' reveals an exclusively and chauvinistically pro-Palestinian stance. No mention of that one on the BBC.

The reason, therefore, she lost it, could be seen in a different light when one postulates that she felt that the terrorists owed her one for being on their side in the conflict. Absent recognition of that, she lost it. One interpretation of course, but one we're entitled to as much as we are to the Gladys Aylward made-up treatment. Unless facts are unpacked, interpretations are limited.

Going further, one might note the kind of detail picked up by David Vance via the Irish media: it turns out Ms Burton had helped out in Cuba, too- a picture begins to emerge - working shoulder to shoulder with a Sinn Fein activist.. er councillor.

The Beeb knows we like the glamour (though actually I find none of this stuff glamorous, only pathetic), and they're only to happy to give her the Gladys Aylward treatment. But they know much better than that- and they're sitting on that knowledge because it suits their news agenda. It figures. The Honest Reporting awards summarised reasons for the BBC's victory in the Dishonest Reporting Awards, 2005 by referring to:

...a pattern of naivete, dishonesty, forcing facts conform to a narrow worldview and, arguably, a desire to inappropriately influence events

Oh, I beg to differ. I think the desire is unarguable. I am only gratified when I notice it failing to be consummated.

de Havilland is good on Russia's ticklish gas problem. Very forthright.

'Russia needs to be treated with respect, but only the sort of respect you give a drunk with a knife as he staggers down the street.'

Happy New Year- and see the Beeb's grey matter stewing as they struggle to reallign in the face of new 'realities on the ground'.

Jeremy Bowen comes close to endorsing the neo-con revolution in the Middle East. Close, I say.

But first a little linguistic analysis. It's always noticeable how odd contortions of language are used when people want to soften the truth (ie. approach a lie). Jeremy Bowen gives a modest example with his intro:

'Oppression and violence and the doings of despotic regimes can seem to drown everything else out.' (in the Middle East)

The thing I notice is this triplicate 'Oppression and violence and the doings of despotic regimes...'

Just where is the oppression and violence disassociated with despotic regimes? Of course one might say he means terrorism, but this disjunction of several ills from the well-known despotism of the region seems unjust. Terrorists are merely aspiring despots, or tools of the same. One senses that Bowen is trying to blur distinctions into a 'we are all sinners' point (and the Israelis in particular, as usual). Naturally the BBC journalist carries round an instinctive awareness of an international audience that encompasses many who disapprove of Israel and the US and all that they do, and only a few jews.

Enough of the bad. What's good about Bowen's piece is that it identifies very forthrightly the locus of reform in the Middle East:

'there are signs of change.

They go back, in one way or another, to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.'

Yay. Iraq war good. At last.

Well of course, as I said, not quite. Bowen picks up John Simpson's point about bombing in Jordan being caused by the US invasion of Iraq- 'The violence will continue, and across the Middle East governments are worried that it will spread their way.

In Jordan, it already has.'

That really is Beeb-think in action, since it really flies in the face of the analysis of the Jordanians themselves, who blame not GWB but Al-Zarkawi- producing headlines and initiatives like this one (just as an evil neo-con of Rovian intellect might have planned away back).

It almost annuls the impact of saying 'Thanks to the Americans, Iraq had elections in December 2005.' , but not quite.

And then of course Bowen makes the obligatory anti-neo-con point that islamists may actually be popular, so democracy will work against America.

Maybe so- though he ignores contrary indicators like the response of Jordan to the bombings- but his point's a dud:

'The Americans are discovering that the problem with democracy is that it can produce results that you don't like.

That's just the way it is.'

Huh- very bluff. Very Yorkshire.

America- the country that knows more about democracy in terms of consecutive experience of it than any other. People there apparently haven't figured that votes can go against them, over the four centuries they've been experiencing it. I think the point has been demonstrated amply that where democracy endures and a commitment to it is made over time, despots shrivel and fall away- but the Beeb haven't quite figured that one out yet. But its what we all want, isn't it?

I try to conceal my admiration for Mark Steyn as a journalist and thinker, but it doesn't work- so why bother? Scroll down these NRO '06 predictions and you'll find some of the boldest and more interesting predictions for the coming year from the man himself. The one I liked the most was:

'Osama bin Laden will continue to be dead, and will be confirmed as such.'

Food for thought. There's also one about the fall of the German Government. And then there's the funny one at the end.

Maybe though, a new, saner dawn is just around the corner for the Beeb (an early New Year's resolution, perhaps?). I sometimes find a little snippet on the Beeb which indicates that somehow things might be changing. I am an optimistic sort, and dislike the feeling that I am unevenhanded. So, I'm linking this article about the Polish decision to stay in Iraq.

According to the BBC report there currently:

'The new conservative government's decision reverses the previous leftist administration's plan to pull troops out in early 2006.'

I highlight the point. 'Leftist' sounds a bit almost well, pejorative, especially when set against the 'conservative government' part. Of course I don't ask for a slant towards the right, but it's a small point I think I ought to acknowledge.

I really had to share this little gem from the American Expat's site. Not only does Scott skewer the BBC's anti-Bush/America bias in two recent posts, he also gets entertaining comments like the following:

'In a very deep and beautiful way Mr. Bush has penetrated to the innermost core of the BBC, where everything is interpreted in the light of his existence. It really is poetic justice that the BBC should be housed at, of all places, Bush House.'

Latest example of BBC Bush hysteria here. I think 'buff' is a term they reserve for eccentric amateur followers of the arcane, and US Presidents they have no respect for.

Basic stuff

Ok, I said I'd pop back, and here I am. Well, actually here I am- within a mighty stone's throw anyway. Quite wintry, which I gather the UK is beginning to feel as well (Christmas passed with the usual lack of whiteness, apparently, as indeed it did here by and large).

But while surfing, I found an item which has been buzzing in certain Brit-blogs for a day or two now. PC Coetzee (not to be confused with JM, who 'constructs representations of people slipping their chains') has been doing too much pesky arresting. What struck me about it was the comment from Coetzee's Chief Inspector that gave as an example of this fault 'arresting people who have failed to appear in court'

That's why I so admire PC Coetzee- he enforces the law. He forces people to face the courts which their alleged crimes are said by British Parliament-passed laws to merit. Last year (04) I faced a court on about three occasions over one motoring case(when postponements are considered I actually readied myself to face it about five times- and part of this time while not even UK resident). I won my case, which was a minor one, without a lawyer. I don't think it should have taken that long; it certainly shouldn't have been postponed at all (due to lack of court time). The reason probably lies partly in the fact that many cases have to be scheduled but the defendants fail to show, thus creating chaos and an atmosphere of disorder throughout the system.

It's all about enforcement really. If they enforced the law they wouldn't need, and wouldn't be able, to have catch-all police policies that rely on convicting those who allow themselves to be convicted. They would then have the respect of all: the real offenders, who would understand that to offend is to be forced to face the law, and the generally law-abiding person, who would be less likely to be targeted just because of a mild temporary lapse (not my case, actually; I was innocent altogether, and proved to the court's satisfaction that the prosecution- shifty coves the lot- had no case) and would then consider a general policy of good-citizenship more rewarding.

Failure to appear in court is a crime fundamental to all others. It's basic stuff and the stuff of a basic law-abiding society. And the idea that a Chief Inspector can just dismiss it with a curt criticism of one of his best officers (from a community- the white South African immigrants- to whom we already seem to owe a debt for their expertise and uprightness) is just fairly sickening and equally predictable. The sickening part is that it's something that could so easily be addressed had not the liberloids their heads up their backsides. You know where people live (and soon you'll know it even better); they can't get away; yet you let them, to the detriment of the entire system.

Anyway, on the theme of the basics, Mark Steyn is remembering the Tsunami relief effort, and there seems to be this same lack of sense which has infected many aspects of the British establishment (see this sickeningly shallow nonsense masquerading as common sense as St Jack tells us Christmas cards are ok. Thanks Jack). It makes me ask whether this Christmastide we should not be asking whether liberalism (in the sense of treating certain majorities as though they were the real sponsors of iniquity, on racial or historical grounds, in defiance of actual racial or historically based data- with the corollary that certain minorities are either on historical or racial grounds to have a false reality cocooned about them) isn't actually a kind of virus which impairs the life-support system of a decent society and a sensible mind.

I begin to fear I am not indefatigable- unlike some who post the Christmas through. Happy Christmas though to everyone, and I'll be back in the interim period before the New Year. Jingle Bells, and all that...

'Opinion I can handle; it's biased narrative posing as objective reporting that needs to stop'- Jeff Goldstein.

Just a random quote from the clever ad thingys that Pajamas are using to attract readers- but it made me think of the BBC's Matt Frei for some reason. Oh and this twit. Roll on a media revolution!

Lost Boys

Thanks to Eamonn in the comments, this article is a fascinating read- the closest to a real and constructive kind of deconstruction of text that I've come across for a long time, perhaps ever. The text in question? Well, not one, naturally, but a pastiche of Bin Ladenisms cross-referenced with the media in the UK and US (no need for Bin Laden to mine the depths of the Middle East or French press). One can see that Bin Laden is no philosopher- unless one counts Derrida and co with their playful deferral of meaning.

Deferral of responsibility; deferral of meaning. Both seem to be in vogue yet also pathological conditions we are imprisoned by. I guess that a young man by the name of Daniel Higgins thought of his life as a kind of game. He was only eighteen when tortured and murdered- fatefully yet cold-bloodedly- by a group of vengeful Asians. By then he had apparently built such a reputation that when an Asian man was killed by having a knife stuck into his liver during a robbery, Higgins was the rumoured killer- supposedly beyond the reach of the law despite a 50,000 pound reward for information. If the reports available are anything to go by, there was a sensational trial to determine his killers, following his Tarantinoesque death. Higgins was already a father when his life was taken; the nexus of connexions surrounding him seems to have been explosive.

I wonder how much Tarantino has done to help evolve the definition of "white trash"?

Against such drama the dry work of a chronicler of genocide pales. But I was delighted to find this website concerned with analysing the National Islamic Front's Sudanese massacres. I could have wished long ago for action not words but it's a hugely worthy site.

I also found this essay from AEI chimed precisely with my feelings: George Bush has found his voice. I think it's necessary today to let the wordsmiths play in the newspapers, magazines, on air and online so I sympathise with the situation he has faced. It's necessary to let the bullying loudmouths play; not only that but it can't be avoided as no-one shouts louder than someone in love with their own voice.

I'm not sure we need too much analysis: we have to endure it though. So though I welcome the Tigerhawk's assessment of success in Iraq, I think that the democratic vote is the most unambiguous sign that sometime soon the bottom line of US deaths in Iraq will fall to a level whose meaning is unambiguously clear. (thanks to Laban and Instapundit for some links and thoughts)

BBC's hands clean: rendition of the truth proceeds apace.

So the BBC, itching to say some really nasty things about George Bush's Iraq 'adventure' and Saddam's trial, daren't say it themselves but instead outsource the job to one of our admirable academic fraternity.

Imagine though: would the BBC even consider the same approach to calling Saddam an evil and criminal dictator, in the circumstances? I think not; they would never allow it to be said, let alone themselves say such a thing.

Yet here the reassuringly educated-sounding tranzi-commentator (whose job, naturally depends on convincing people of the benefits of international legal procedures) says, quite brazenly, 'Regardless of specific American influences, though, the whole trial is tainted in some eyes by the illegality of the initial invasion.'

Don't the Beeb geddit; ever? That's Saddam's argument in a nutshell, and the Beeb are making it for him via this academic cipher. Just to underscore this point, it isn't, in this article's view, that some people think the Iraq invasion was illegal, it's that because the Iraq war was illegal some people think the trial is tainted. If it really were they'd be right to, because illegality implies that the status quo ante was more just than the status quo post invasion, ergo Saddam's innocent in this court at this time, strictly speaking. As I said, Saddam's argument: and the BBC is broadcasting it.

Beeb evades reporting the news (shock); reports Democrat talking points once again. Oh yes, there was some kind of Beeb report (note the starting point: a humble Bush implies a previously arrogant one- duh), but it just got lost quite quickly and was pretty hard even to track down.

Optimism- This is a great account in the Weekly Standard of how Iraq, through its election success, is looking up in quite a big way. If so then it is a sign that the recent months' higher casualty figures were a reflection of what William Kristol calls 'the recently adopted American/Iraqi counterinsurgency strategy of "clear and hold."'. In other words, a more pro-active strategy- impossible prior to greater Iraqi involvement- which clearly puts lives at risk but offers the prospect of unambiguous advances. A real no pain no gain strategy instead of an intangibly directed process of losing lives.

The extraordinary Sunni turn out (70-80% in supposedly terminally recalcitrant 'strongholds' of anti-Americanism), when combined with the solid democratic enthusiasm of the Shia and Kurds, seems to indicate an inexorable critical mass of democratic decision-making which makes the Islamofascists redundant. I don't see what other major card the terrorists can hope will fall their way.

Mark Steyn today is wonderfully bullish too, almost as scathing of the Democrats as he should be.