Amerikanerne er ONDE! ONDE! ONDE!, siger jeg!

Vi ved jo alle at amerikanerne pr. definition er onde. Deres seneste påfund er at sørge for at det sydlige Afrika lider under tørke:

A state-run newspaper in Zimbabwe has suggested the UK and US are to blame for droughts in southern Africa.

The Herald said climate change has been artificially induced "in a bid to arm-twist the region to capitulate to the whims of the world's superpowers".

It said weather was being manipulated for political gain using unspecified "unconventional" chemical weapons.

Tja...hvorfor ikke. I december stod amerikanerne jo bag den store tsunami i det Indiske Ocean:

The earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean on December 26, triggering a series of huge waves called tsunami, "was possibly" caused by an Indian nuclear experiment in which "Israeli and American nuclear experts participated," an Egyptian weekly magazine reported Thursday.

Endelig var det jo også amerikanerne der stjal en sø i Rusland i maj:

A large lake disappeared in Russia's Nizhni Novgorod region overnight. Residents of the village of Bolotnikovo discovered a huge trench instead of a million cubic meters of water on Thursday morning. No other lake appeared in the area. ...

Local residents were shocked to find out that their lake had literally vanished from the area. Village fishermen came to the lake early in the morning. "I was amazed to see that there was no water there. All I could think of was - oh, my God," a local resident said. One of the men assumed that the USA had been involved in such an amazing natural phenomenon: "I think that America got us here," a man said.

Disse onde, onde amerikanere. Det står da også bag ALT ondt der sker.

Henrik

Koran-skændingerne spreder sig..

......eller i hvert fald gør beskyldningerne om det, nu muslimerne har fundet ud af at det giver opmærksomhed. BBC:

A Christian man has been arrested in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province for allegedly desecrating a Koran.

Yousaf Masih, 35, was arrested late on Tuesday in the town of Nowshera, 40km (25 miles) east of Peshawar.

Neighbours had complained Mr Masih had torn pages from the Koran and burned them in the street. About 300 people protested, demanding quick punishment.

Insulting Islam, the Prophet Mohammad or the holy book can be punishable with death under blasphemy laws. ...

Some of the people protesting over Mr Masih's alleged actions reportedly pelted a nearby Hindu temple with stones wrongly thinking he was a Hindu.

Nå ja.....kristen, hindu....de er jo alle hedninge, så om man stener den ene eller den anden...

Henrik

Reagan den største amerikaner nogensinde

Discovery Channel og AOL har foretaget en måling af, hvem amerikanerne synes er den største amerikaner nogen sinde. Resultatet?

Former US President Ronald Reagan has been voted the "greatest American" of all time by his fellow citizens.

Mr Reagan, who died last year aged 93, topped a list of 10 contenders, which featured six former presidents.

Man skulle også mene at det at hive USA ud af den sump det var i i slutningen af 70erne, og undervejs knække østblokken fortjente lidt anerkendelse.

USA´s nuværende præsident George W. Bush kom ind som nummer 6 nogensinde, over den i Europa så elskede Bill Clinton. BBC kan ikke få sig selv til at sige, så istedet bliver det til:

Current US President George W Bush and his predecessor Bill Clinton, whose
presidency was tarnished by the Monica Lewinski sex scandal, are both in
the top 10.

En tilsvarende undersøgelse foretaget i Tyskland i 2003 lover ikke så fantastisk godt for det land:

In a poll held in Germany in 2003, former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer beat Reformation monk Martin Luther and political thinker Karl Marx into second and third place in a top 10 that included Albert Einstein and the inventor of the printing press Johannes Gutenberg.

Lover ikke godt.

Henrik

Verdensfjernhed i Australien - og et godt spørgsmål

Jeg har tidligere rapporteret om de to nu frie irak-gidsler Ulf Hjertstrom og Douglas Wood - den ene frikøbt af den svenske stat, den anden befriet af irakiske tropper. Sidstnævnte har - bla på baggrund af at han så de irakiske gidseltagere henrette fire andre gidsler i sin celle kaldt dem for "røvhuller". Af en eller anden mærkelig grund er det faldet folk på den australske venstrefløj for brystet - bla Andrew Jaspan (Herald Sun via Little Green Footballs):

Jaspan is editor-in-chief of The Age, Australia's most Left-wing daily newspaper, and on ABC radio on Wednesday said how "boorish" and "coarse" Wood was at his press conference this week when he called his captors "a---holes". ...

But far more shocking was his apparent demand that Wood be more grateful to the men who'd snatched him, kicked him in the head, kept him blindfolded and bound for 47 days, shaved him bald, killed two of his colleagues, made him beg for his life, and -- says a fellow hostage from Sweden -- shot several other prisoners in front of him.

Let's run the tape.

Said Jaspan: "I was, I have to say, shocked by Douglas Wood's use of the a---hole word, if I can put it like that, which I just thought was coarse and very ill-thought through and I think demeans the man and is one of the reasons why people are slightly sceptical of his motives and everything else.

"The issue really is largely, speaking as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive." The ingrate.

I haven't heard much lately more perverse. If what Wood went through is Jaspan's idea of being "treated well", I finally understand why The Age seems so
dismayed by the fall of nice Saddam Hussein, who similarly treated his victims so well that more than 300,000 have been found in mass graves. They must have been simply tickled to death to be there.

It would be wrong to think of all this as just one man's loose talk, rather than an example of the astonishing blindness of the Left, so enraged by anti-Americanism that it can barely distinguish morally between terrorists and their "boorish" victims. Not when those terrorists hate America, too.

Man kommer helt til at tænke på det sammenrend der har tænkt sig at demonstrere under mottoet "Stop Bush" d. 6. Juli. Forfatteren går videre til at beskrive hvorfor Douglas Wood åbenbart er endt med at skulle fordømmes sådan:

But we know what Wood's real offence is, don't we?

Yes, he did not do as did SBS journalist and Left hero John Martinkus after his own brief captivity and declare his kidnappers were "not savages", and say Iraq was "on the road to s---".

INSTEAD, he roared "God bless America" and praised the US-trained Iraqi soldiers -- Iraq's real freedom fighters -- who saved him, saying he was "proof positive that the current policies of the American and Australian governments is the right one".

It seems that to a Leftist, this makes Wood the boorish inferior of the killers who beat him and held him captive. It is why journalist Tracee Hutchinson, in an Age column, calls him a "blustering buffoon", moaning: "It was enough that his words God bless America had been played over and over on his release."

Let me ask younger readers still deciding on their brand of politics. Wouldn't you blush to join this Left?

Gid flere ville stille sig selv det spørgsmål.

Henrik

Græsrodsinitiativ i USA

Little Green Footballs har et rasende underholdende indlæg om det seneste i pro-amerikansk aktivisme: de tilbyder gratis makulering af anti´ernes propaganda-materialer:

A simple concept, legal, moral, and deliciously humorous – Operation Simply Shred provided a polite, free and immediate shredding service for any unwanted political literature or flyer that an Air Show or parade attendee did not care to keep any longer. Small, powerful battery operated shredders in the hands of polite and helpful volunteers allowed any citizen to exercise their own First Amendment right to shred any flyer or propaganda piece handed to them by a “peace at any price” protestor just seconds after they received it. And it was environmentally friendly to boot. ...

The peace protestors appeared like clockwork when the Air Show gates opened and they started handing out their leaflets. They saw us, and at first our signs confused them. We offered to take any unwanted political flyers from any citizen who wanted to give them to us and then shredded them before the eyes of the smiling citizen and in full view of the peacenik who handed it out. The peaceniks were stunned.

When the shock wore off they came to dialog with us. The head peacenik said “its like Nazi book burning, you’re fascists.” We said “you want free speech, well – people who don’t like your propaganda are free to take it from you, give it to us and shred it.” ...

He could dish it out but he sure couldn’t take it.

The reaction from the regular citizens was astounding. We were thanked, we were given thumbs up, we were offered food and drink (which we declined as we were way too busy), we had veterans of all ages salute us for our efforts and many laughed out loud when they saw us ready and willing to shred a flyer that someone else was handing out just a few feet away.

After two days of working the Air Show, the crowd waiting for the parade, were waiting for The Shredders. As we walked up a side street and folks saw us coming, they started pulling flyers out of their pockets and purses to hand to us, several stating they just knew we’d be there.

LGF har billeder. Det lader bla til at katte ville vælge makulerede anti-pamfletter, ikke kattegrus.

Henrik

Folkemords-monument bulldozes i Tyslkand

Mens jeg nu er igang med at henvise til andre bloggere, så har Davids Medienkritik (via So Blogging What) et udmærket indlæg om de tyske kommunisters forsøg på at tie visse - for dem - ubehagelige dele af historien ihjel:

We didn't think it could get much worse in Germany...well, it just did. Davids Medienkritik recently learned that the Berlin city government, made up of a coalition between the SPD (Gerhard Schroeder's Social-Democrats) and the PDS (former SED party that ran Communist East Germany), has decided to allow the razing of the Checkpoint Charlie monument by court order.

And get this: The monument, which consists of over 1,000 crosses adorned with the names of those murdered attempting to escape Communist East Germany for freedom, will be bulldozed on the 4th of July!

Siden har det Berlinske bystyre i alt sit storsind rykket flytningen til dagen efter - 5. Juli.

Man kan passende tage et sort armbing på den dag. 3 millioner tyskere nåede at flygte fra det kommunistiske Østtyskland før muren blev bygget. Over tusinde blev dræbt under forsøg på at gøre det senere.

Og så tænker vi ikke på de to millioner der blev dræbt og tolv millioner der blev etnisk udrenset af kommunisterne før Østtyskland blev oprettet.

Henrik

Sublim tirade

Mr Andersson har en sublim tirade over bagmændene bag den anti-amerikanske demonstration 6. Juli:

Det er det sammenrend, der arrangerer demonstration i anledning af Bushs besøg d. 6/7. For det er hvad venstrefløjen af i dag nu engang kan finde ud af. Arrangere moddemonstrationer, med svulstige paroler om at stoppe, knuse, bekæmpe og på anden måde distancere sig fra alt det farlige. Det kan næppe overraske. Hvad der dog kan overraske, er hvem der står bag denne demonstration. Jeg havde forventet det sædvanlige sammenrend af mere eller mindre obskure fagforeninger, af mere eller mindre erklæret kommunistisk tilsnit, SF, Enhedslisten og de sædvanlige mikropartier, med en selvhøjtidelighed og patos omvendt proportional med deres medlemstal. De er der skam også - allesammen. Men jeg havde alligevel troet, at man i en demonstration af den slags udviste en slags selvdiciplin.

At man holdt de mest gakkede eksponenter for venstrefascimens borte.

Not so.

Ikke alene tropper det stalinistiske KPiD, der hylder såvel Lukasjenkos nystalinistiske politistat Hviderusland og fansene af mareridtsregimet i Pyongyan fra "Venskabskomiteen DK-Nordkorea" op, men så sandelig om ikke også "Komiteen for et Frit Irak", kendt for sin kompromisløse opbakning til såvel Saddam, resterne af hans Baath-parti og dets allierede, de islamofascistiske massemordere, stolt er opført som værende blandt demonstrationens støtter.

Læs selv resten. Det er guld.

Henrik

Koranen, USAs højesteret og de 10 bud

Iflg CNN har den amerikanske højesteret afsagt dom i en sag om blanding af kirke og stat i USA:

In a narrowly drawn ruling, the Supreme Court struck down Ten Commandments displays in courthouses Monday, holding that two exhibits in Kentucky crossed the line between separation of church and state because they promoted a religious message.

Det er jo som sådan fint nok.

Her på Tiraden venter jeg så bare på at samme ret så også forbyder Pentagon at dele 2.600 koraner ud til de indsatte på Guantanamo for skatteydernes penge. En sådan ensidig reklamering for et religiøst budskab kan vi jo ikke have.

Giv dem Morten Korch istedet for - så kan de lære det.

Henrik

Verdensfjernhed i EU

Iflg BBC:

EU Iran policy 'needs no change'

The European Union says it sees no immediate reason to modify its policy towards Tehran, following the election of a hardliner as Iranian president.

Nej, hvorfor i alverden skulle det at en tidligere torturbøddel og snigmorder er blevet præsident i Iran da også ændre noget som helst?

Henrik

Græsrodsinitiativ mod gidseltagninger i Irak

Det lader til at der faktisk findes svenskere med rygrad alligevel:

A HOSTAGE held alongside Australian Douglas Wood in Iraq has hired bounty hunters to track down his former captors, promising to eliminate them one by one.

Swede Ulf Hjertstrom, who was held for several weeks with Mr Wood in Baghdad, was released by his kidnappers on May 30.Mr Hjertstrom has since claimed he shared information with US and Iraqi troops about Mr Wood which led to the release of the 63-year-old Australian engineers two weeks ago, after 47 days in captivity.

Now, he wants to find those responsible.

"I have now put some people to work to find these bastards," he told the Ten Network today.

"I invested about $50,000 so far and we will get them one by one."

Hjertstrom og Woods så fire andre gidsler - alle irakere - blive henrettet i deres celle mens de var i gidseltagernes varetægt.

Henrik

Irans nye præsident

Iran Focus har puttet en lille biografi af Irans nye præsident online. Han lyder som en rigtig hyggelig mand:

In the early 1980s, Ahmadinejad worked in the “Internal Security” department of the IRGC and earned notoriety as a ruthless interrogator and torturer. According to the state-run website Baztab, allies of outgoing President Mohammad Khatami have revealed that Ahmadinejad worked for some time as an executioner in the notorious Evin Prison, where thousands of political prisoners were executed in the bloody purges of the 1980s.

In 1986, Ahmadinejad became a senior officer in the Special Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards and was stationed in Ramazan Garrison near Kermanshah in western Iran. Ramazan Garrison was the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards’ “extra-territorial operations”, a euphemism for terrorist attacks beyond Iran’s borders.

In Kermanshah, Ahmadinejad became involved in the clerical regime’s terrorist operations abroad and led many “extra-territorial operations of the IRGC”. With the formation of the elite Qods (Jerusalem) Force of the IRGC, Ahmadinejad became one of its senior commanders. He was the mastermind of a series of assassinations in the Middle East and Europe, including the assassination of Iranian Kurdish leader Abdorrahman Qassemlou, who was shot dead by senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards in a Vienna flat in July 1989. Ahmadinejad was a key planner of the attack, according to sources in the Revolutionary Guards.

Det er så den mand der skal lede Iran de næste 7 år, i en tid hvor landet er ved at få atomvåben.

Betryggende.

Henrik

Venstre-religiøse - nu også i Storbritanien

Det er ikke kun i Danmark, de venstrereligiøse blander sig i politik:

A top body in the Anglican Communion has urged its churches worldwide to put pressure on firms supporting Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.

The Anglican Consultative Council also urged action against firms supporting violence against "innocent Israelis".

Spørgsmålet er så hvorfor kun vold mod "uskyldige" israeler fordømmes, og hvad der skal til før man er "skyldig" israeler. Er de her "skyldige", feks?

On Friday afternoon, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a group of Israeli youths waiting at a hitchhiking post outside the West bank settlement of Beit Haggai, southwest of Hebron.

A 15-year-old was killed and four others were wounded in the attack.

Preliminary reports indicate that, at around 4:45 PM, a white car initially passed the hitchhiking post, but made a U-turn when those inside saw the teens waiting there. The vehicle then stopped in front of the post, and someone inside opened fire on the youths and on a family in a blue car that had stopped to give them a lift. ...

Amir and Ra'ut Azoulay were in the blue car with their four-year-old when they were lightly wounded by shrapnel. They managed to drive away, but the more seriously were evacuated by helicopter to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein-Kerem Hospital and Beer Sheva's Soroka Medical Center.

Grunden de palæstinensiske terrorister gav for angrebet var Israelsk "krænkelse af våbenhvilen". Man spekulerer om den "krænkelse" de taler om er Israelske soldaters forhindring af et selvmordsangreb på et hospital, tidligere omtalt her. Little Green Footballs har for øvrigt billeder af hendes forsøg på at sprænge sig selv i luften og hendes reaktion da hun finder ud af at den bombe - der ifølge hende selv var plantet i hendes undertøj uden hendes viden - ikke virker.

Kosteligt.

Update:

Man kan downloade og se video af desarmeringen af selvmordsbomberen på det israelske forsvars side her.

Samme dag som israelerne stoppede hende krævede kvartetten bag den mellemøstlige fredsproces (USA, Rusland, FN og EU) for øvrigt at de skulle løsne op for sikkerhedsprocedurerne ved deres kontrolposter. Man undrer sig over hvilken planet de lever på.

Henrik

Støt Bush - En anden verden er mulig

Som man måske vil have lagt mærke til kommer USA´s Præsident Bush på besøg her i Danmark fra den 5. til den 6. Juli.

Som det nok også vil være gået op for de fleste har en uhellig alliance af alt fra Greenpeace til diktatur-heppekorene for Cuba og Nordkorea besluttet sig for at Bush er en ond mand når bare han sådan styrter to folkemorderiske diktaturer og befrier halvtreds millioner mennesker uden at spørge dem om lov først.

Det var vi sådan set nogle stykker der syntes krævede bare en lille bitte smule modspil - en rask lille pro-amerikansk demonstration, feks. Dette udviklede sig efterhånden indtil Il Kimpo fra Polemiken, Kim Møller fra Uriasposten og undertegnede - Henrik Krog - fandt på at stifte Initiativ for Fred og Frihed, bare for at se om der mon ikke skulle være andre der har samme ide som os. Første offentlige tiltag leverede Kim Møller i går:

Vær glad for ytringsfriheden

6/7 gæster George W. Bush København, og jeg vil på vegne af Initiativ for Fred og Frihed (www.fredogfrihed.org) opfordre alle interesserede til at møde op og vise Bush, USA og resten af verden, at Danmark ikke er en forstad til Paris. Når den yderste venstrefløj samme dag demonstrerer mod Bush og USA, ignorerer den, at uden statsmænd som Bush var offentlige ytringer mod magthaverne slet ikke en valgmulighed.

Kortere kan det jo næsten ikke siges.

Skulle De have lyst til at deltage, støtte finansielt eller har de bare lyst til at vide mere, så besøg hjemmesiden eller mail til følgende adresse: info@fredogfrihed.org

Det skal ikke være nogen hemmelighed at vi er en flok glade amatører uden meget andet end godt humør og gåpåmod - vi kan således ikke som StopBush-kampagnen regne med øjeblikkelig støtte fra 30-40 "bevægelser" og budgettere med 100.000 kroner uden at blinke. Men vi tropper op uanset.

Som Berthold Brecht sagde:

Når sandheden er for svag til at forsvare sig må den gå over til modangreb.

Han var ikke helt dum, ham Brecht.

Henrik

Á propos venstrereligiøse:

Nu kom jeg jo for skade at nævne min undren over fraværet af venstrereligiøse i medierne. BBC har været flink og øjeblikkeligt rettet op på dette:

A group of progressive Christians in the US have launched a new political movement to counter what they describe as the power of the religious right.

The Christian Alliance for Progress aims to "reclaim Christianity" and influence the political agenda. ...

The body joins other liberal religious groups formed around the 2004 election.

Spørgsmålet er jo så om ikke det at være venstreorienteret efterhånden udelukker at man er "progessiv".

Henrik

Mellemøstlige medier ved at vågne op

Under indtrykket af den seneste tids terrorkampagne ført af "oprørerne" i Irak er selv de mellemøstlige medier ved at vågne op til virkeligheden:

The coverage of the violence in Iraq by Arab satellite television stations has undergone a perceptible change in recent months. ...

Al Jazeera - often accused by the Americans of stirring anti-US feeling - has adopted less of an "Us and Them" approach.

The militants are no longer referred to as the "resistance" but as gunmen or suicide bombers. Eyewitnesses are shown denouncing them as "terrorists" - condemnations that are echoed by a parade of Iraqi officials and religious authorities.

One recent attack drew this comment from the al-Jazeera reporter: "Most of the time it's civilians who pay the price for the violence that has cost thousands of their lives".

Al-Jazeera's main rival, the Dubai-based al-Arabiya, has also shown little sympathy for the bombers - a recent report, instead, painted a favourable picture of British soldiers patrolling Basra.

Men selvfølgelig er USA stadig den store satan i åbenbaringen, så en sådan upartiskhed bliver ikke dem til del:

This has raised questions in some parts of the Arab media about the legitimacy of the groups carrying out the attacks, although the blame for the upsurge in violence is still mainly being placed on the Americans.

Iranerne er allerede (som nævnt her, og i modsætningen til deres ledere der for tiden holder "valg) kommet til fornuft. Nu mangler vi bare resten af Mellemøsten. Små skridt. Små skridt.

Henrik

Irans valg

Nu har første runde af de iranske præsidentvalg været ovre i nogle dage, men alligevel syntes jeg da jeg skulle kommentere det lidt. Alle de tre følgende citater er fra Politiken, der har taget dem alle fra Ritzau. Først Politiken 18. Juni:

Talsmanden, Gholamhossein Elham, sagde, at da 20 af de omkring 32 millioner afgivne stemmer var talt op, førte valgets favorit, den moderate konservative præst Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, med 20,84 procent.

Teherans konservative borgmester, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stod ifølge de
foreløbige resultater til 19,71 procent, mens den moderate præst Mehdi Karroubi, der inden valget blev betragtet som en outsider, så ud til at få 17,57 procent af stemmerne efter at have taget en overraskende, kortvarig føring, da omkring 40 procent af stemmerne var talt op. ...

I Irans storbyer er stemmerne imidlertid ikke talt op endnu, og det kan ændre markant ved det endelige resultat.

Senere samme dag blev det - også på Politiken - til:

Den moderate præst Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani og Teherans ultra-højrereligiøse borgmester Mahmoud Ahmadinejad går videre til anden valgrunde efter præsidentvalget i Iran, meddelte Irans indenrigsministerium, da optællingen af stemmer var slut i dag.

Endelig mente Politiken følgende den 20.:

I det offentliggjorte brev antyder Karroubi, at præsidentvalget, hvor han kom ind på en tredjeplads efter Irans tidligere præsident Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani og Teherans ultra-højrereligiøse borgmester, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, var præget af svindel.

Her står spørgsmålene straks i kø:

1) Hvordan i alverden kan man knytte ordet "moderat" til en kandidat (Rafsanjani) når denne ikke bare står bag snigmord i udlandet, men også truer med at udrydde et helt land.

2) Hvorfor går Ahmadinejad fra at være "konservativ" når stemmer fra storbyerne stadig kan sørge for at hans kandidatur er forgæves til at være "ultra-højrereligiøs" når det står fast at han gør det?

3) Når nu Ahmadinejad pludselig bliver "ultra-højrereligiøs", hvorfor er de to præster Rafsanjani og Karroubi så ikke henholdsvist "højrereligiøs" og "centrum-" eller "venstre-religiøs?

Bare et par tanker.

Derudover har Angantyrs Hjørne en interessant historie om meningsmålinger foretaget i Iran. Fra Belga via Angantyrs Hjørne:

A recent public opinion survey of Iranians, conducted by The Tarrance Group, surprisingly found that a vast majority (74%) of Iranians feel America'spresence in the Middle East will increase the probability of democracy in their own country. The survey, which was the first of its kind, found two-thirds ofIranians believe that regime change in Iraq has been a positive for both neighboring countries: with 66% believing that it served Iran's national interests, while 65% believed the Iraqi people will, in the long-run, be better off.

Commissioned by the Iran Institute for Democracy, the survey discovered that a solid majority (65%) of Iranian adults consider fundamental change in Iran's system of government, especially its Constitution, a must to bring freedom and more opportunities to their homeland.

Læs selv resten.

Update:

Under mere hjemlige himmelstrøg kan man undres over at den mand der nok er mest i medierne med at fordømme "højrereligiøse" især i USA - socialdemokraten Svend Auken - ikke havde noget problem med at lade sin søster - folkesocialist og kristen præst Margrethe Auken - placere ham på prædikestolen i Vartov Kirke så han kunne sende sin politiske propaganda ud til folket for licensbetalernes penge.

Jeg spekulerer på om ikke man så kan kalde de to Auken´er "Venstre-religiøse"?

Henrik

Hezbollah, arabere og Sydamerika.

Tidligere på ugen slog ecuadoriansk politi ned på en narko-ring der fungerede som penge-ko for Hezbollah, og blev ledet af Rady Zaiter, en libanesisk restaurant-ejer. BBC:

Police in Ecuador say they have broken up an international drugs ring which was raising money for the Islamic militant group, Hezbollah. ...

Officials are hailing it as a success in both the war on drugs and on terror. ...

Along with the restaurant owner, identified as Rady Zaiter, who was arrested in Colombia last week, six other suspects were also detained in Ecuador.

They are said to originate from Algeria, Ecuador, Lebanon, Nigeria and Turkey.

The police investigation, codenamed Operation Damascus, led to the arrests of a further 19 people in Brazil and the United States.

Police say that the gang were obtaining cocaine from neighbouring Colombia and trafficking it to Europe, the Middle East and the rest of South America. ...

Ecuadorean police say that each drugs shipment was worth $1m and that up to 70% of the profits went to the Islamic militant group Hezbollah.

At Hezbollah tjener store penge på kriminalitet og har et netværk i Latinamerika er intet nyt - i 1992 og 1994 foretog Hezbollah-celler støttet af Iran terrorangreb på hhv. den israelske ambassade og et jødisk kulturcenter i Argentina, dræbte 116 uskyldige og sårede over 350 andre. Angrebet i 1994 var udført af en narko-ring som den beskrevet foroven, bestående hovedsageligt af Libanesere. Retsforfølgelsen af de ansvarlige for terrorangrebene har det imidlertid været så som så med, og der har været kraftige beskyldninger om at Argentinas præsident, Carlos Menem, har holdt hånden over de skyldige - manden er nemlig selv af arabisk herkomst.

Her vi nogen måske studse: en araber som præsident i et Latinamerikansk land?

Ja da. Faktisk er der overraskende mange arabere i magtfulde positioner i Latinamerika - såvel Honduras, Argentina, Colombia og El Salvador har haft præsidenter af arabisk herkomst, og Equador har haft hele to. Belize har eller har haft en arabisk premier-minister. I nogle tilfælde er der endda ingen mulighed for at komme uden om dem: tag Equadors præsidentvalg i 1996:

... all of the three most likely candidates were of Lebanese extraction: Vice President Alberto Dahik Garzozi; the mayor of the capital city, Jamil Mahuad Witt; and former governor Jaime Nebot Saadi

Eller El Salvadors præsidentvalg i 2004:

International observers at the recent, heated elections in the Central American nation of El Salvador might have been surprised to discover amid the violent political polarization, a curious similarity between its two presidential candidates: both are Palestinian. Tony Saca, a hard-line capitalist with strong American ties, and Schafik Handal, a Cuban-style communist, both hail from families that emigrated from Bethlehem together in 1913.

De har også stor indflydelse i feks Mexico:

Another reminder comes from a Syrian Arab News Agency report on a meeting between Syria's minister of expatriates, Buthaina Shaaban, and the Greek Orthodox archbishop of Mexico, Venezuela and central America, Anton Shedrawi. According to the news report, not only did the two stress the "necessity of boosting Syrian-Mexican relations in all domains" but Shedrawi pointed out that 12 percent of Mexico's Senators, Parliamentarians, and provincial governors are of Arab origins

Det er imidlertid i Brassilien at det største mindretal af arabisk oprindelse findes - mellem 9 og 12 millioner, dog uden at have nået toppen af den politiske rangstige:

Perhaps the best known Brazilian politician of Arab descent is Paulo Maluf, a perpetual presidential hopeful who twice served as mayor of Sao Paulo and once as governor of Sao Paulo state. Maluf, the son of a Lebanese immigrant, faces charges of embezzlement and is accused of overbilling highway and tunnel construction projects while serving as mayor between 1993 and 1996.

Under Brazil's former military regime, Ibrahim Abi-Ackel, the son of Lebanese immigrants, served as justice minister for President Joao Figueiredo. A leading adversary was liberal Sen. Pedro Simon, who is also of Lebanese descent.

En ting der dog skal nævnes er at det store flertal af disse folk af arabisk herkomst er kristne, der flygtede fra smålig islamisk forfølgelse i Mellemøsten (der er således 2 gange flere folk af libanesisk afstamning i Brassilien som der er reelle Libanesere). Den colombianske popstjerne Shakira er et eksempel - hun er katolik, stammer fra Libanon, har et arabisk navn (Shakira betyder "yndefuld kvinde" på arabisk). Det er også der mavedansen i hendes videoer kommer fra - hun lærte den af sin bedstemor.

Ved at komme væk fra den forfølgelse der drev dem hjemmefra er det imidlertid lykkedes dem at glemme den, og en nostalgisk sympati med hjemlandet og dets folk er blevet tilbage. Det åbner uheldigvis for så uheldige tiltag som Menems eventuelle beskyttelse af Libanesiske terrorister og El Salvadors park opkaldt efter en terrorist.

I samme skuffe falder også det nylige topmøde mellem mellemøstlige og latinamerikanske lande i Brassilien.

Update:

Lidt mere om Hizbollahs involvering i kriminalitet i Argentina kan findes her.

Henrik

Den anti-semitiske syge

Paul Johnson har en fremragende artikel om anti-semitismen i Commentary Magazine:

What strikes the historian surveying anti-Semitism worldwide over more than two millennia is its fundamental irrationality. It seems to make no sense, any more than malaria or meningitis makes sense. In the whole of history, it is hard to point to a single occasion when a wave of anti-Semitism was provoked by a real Jewish threat (as opposed to an imaginary one). In Japan, anti-Semitism was and remains common even though there has never been a Jewish community there of any size.

Asked to explain why they hate Jews, anti-Semites contradict themselves. Jews are always showing off; they are hermetic and secretive. They will not assimilate; they assimilate only too well. They are too religious; they are too materialistic, and a threat to religion. They are uncultured; they have too much culture. They avoid manual work; they work too hard. They are miserly; they are ostentatious spenders. They are inveterate capitalists; they are born Communists. And so on. In all its myriad manifestations, the language of anti-Semitism through the ages is a dictionary of non-sequiturs and antonyms, a thesaurus of illogic and inconsistency.

Derefter følger en eminent læseværdig historisk gennemgang af anti-semitismen, fra Spanien over Tyskland til Mellemøsten. Læs selv resten.

Henrik

Irak: Sunnier på tværs, men ved at blive fornuftige

Sidste slag i propagandakrigen i Irak: den irakiske justitsminister kaster om sig med beskyldninger mod amerikanerne, og BBC bringer dem gladeligt videre:

Iraq's justice minister has accused the US of concealing information about deposed president Saddam Hussein that could be damaging to "many countries".

Abdel Hussein Shandal said it seemed there were "lots of secrets" that the Americans wanted to hide. ...

"There should be transparency and there should be frankness, but there are secrets that, if revealed, won't be in the interest of many countries," Mr Shandal said.

"Who was helping Saddam all those years?"

Selv om man ikke kan lade være med at undres over at det er USA der skal peges fingre af (svaret på mandens spørgsmål er nemt: Frankrig og Rusland/Sovjetunionen - se her), så er forklaringen imidlertid åbenlys, når bare man tilføjer nogle detaljer som BBC vælger IKKE at bringe: Hr Shandal er del af den samme folkegruppe (sunnitiske arabere - 15-20% af befolkningen) der står bag "modstanden" og før befrielsen i 2003 stod bag Saddams styre. Iflg WSBTV:

Abdel Hussein Shandal -- Sunni Arab, hold law degree. Served as president of
Baghdad's special-crimes and appellate courts during Hussein's rule.

Hr. Shandal agerer som medspiller i en kampagne sunni-araberne har kørt de sidste par måneder for at forøge deres indflydelse på den nye regering og grundlov så meget som overhovedet muligt. Deres problem er, at de valgte at prøve at bombe de irakiske valg i Januar sønder og sammen istedet for at deltage i dem. De fejlede miserabelt, og har en meget begrænset repræsentation i det irakiske parlament.

Deres eneste reelle forhandlingsobjekt er nu at de måske kan få de nationalistisk indstillede (som i "en irakisk nation domineret af et sunniarabisk mindretal") "oprørsgrupper" til at nedlægge våbnene (se feks her på bloggen). Noget sådant kræver imidlertid en anden ting: at de irakiske og amerikanske tropper ikke smadrer dem fuldstændigt før sunniaraberne har malket dem for alt de er værd i forhandlingerne.

Derfor en udtalelse som foroven: jo flere verbale angreb den amerikanske administration har at tage sig af, jo mindre overskud har den til at nedkæmpe "oprørsgrupperne" i Irak. Et andet forsøg kom tidligt i juni:

An influential Sunni association called for an end to a weeklong counterinsurgency offensive in Baghdad, saying it overwhelmingly targets members of their religious minority and has led to the detention of hundreds of people.

Mens de civile sunniarabere prøver at holde de irakiske og amerikanske styrker tilbage prøver "oprørsgrupperne" at genvinde den støtte de oprindelig havde i deres folkegruppe, indtil deres alliance med al-Qaeda-terroristerne og disses massemord på vilkårlige civile gjorde en del sunniarabere utilfredse.

"Oprørsgrupperne" er selv ret utilfredse med al-Qaeda-folkene efter disse deserterede fra deres stillinger i Fallujah i efteråret. Strategypage har mere:

Al Qaeda and Sunni Arab terrorists are seen battling each other in towns and
villages along the Syrian border. Closer to Baghdad, the terrorists are knocking each other off on a more personal level. Some tips, about where terrorists are hiding, are believed to have come from rival terrorist groups. The Sunni Arabs are under pressure from other Sunni Arab groups because of these continued al Qaeda attacks. The Sunni Arab terrorists are being told, by other Sunni Arab groups, that if al Qaeda is not stopped, the majority of the Sunni Arab community, in addition to the the 80 percent of the population representing the Kurds and Shia Arabs, will come after the Sunni Arab terrorist groups. That would be very bad for the Sunni Arab terrorists. But they are finding that al Qaeda does not care. The al Qaeda guys are on a mission from God, and are basically unreachable when it comes to discussing compromise.

Fra New York Times, under overskriften "Marines see signs Iraq rebels are battling foreign fighters:

Late Sunday night, American marines watching the skyline from their second-story perch in an abandoned house here saw a curious thing: in the distance, mortar and gunfire popped, but the volleys did not seem to be aimed at them.

In the dark, one spoke in hushed code words on a radio, and after a minute found the answer.

"Red on red," he said, using a military term for enemy-on-enemy fire.

Marines patrolling this desert region near the Syrian border have for months been seeing a strange new trend in the already complex Iraqi insurgency. Insurgents, they say, have been fighting each other in towns along the Euphrates from Husayba, on the border, to Qaim, farther west. The observations ... suggest that there may have been, as American commanders suggest, a split between Islamic militants and local rebels. ....

"There is a rift," said the official, who requested anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the talks he had held. "I'm certain that the nationalist Iraqi part of the insurgency is very much fed up with the Jihadists grabbing the headlines and carrying out the sort of violence that they don't want against innocent civilians."

The nationalist insurgent groups, "are giving a lot of signals implying that there should be a settlement with the Americans," while the Jihadists have a purely ideological agenda, he added. ...

"The thought was, "They're coming for us. But then we saw they were fighting each other," he recalled during a break in Monday's operation. "We were kind of wondering what happened. We were getting mortared twice a day, and then all of a sudden it stopped." ...

Capt. Chris Ieva, a fast-talking 31-year-old from North Brunswick, N.J., said he could tell whether an area was controlled by foreign insurgents or locals by whether families had cellphones or guns, which foreign fighters do not allow local residents to have for fear they would spy on them.

Gode nyheder.

Henrik

Palæstinensisk våbenhvile, pt 3

Ynetnews via Little Green Footballs: Erez-grænseovergangen mellem Israel og Gaza-striben. Wafa Samir Ibraim Bas venter på at komme ind i Israel for at blive behandlet for brandsår på hospitalet i Beersheba. Brandsårene har hun fra et uheld under madlavning, og hun har fået en humanitær tilladelse af den Israelske regering så hun kan komme ind i Israel og blive behandlet. Det er imidlertid kun en del af historien. Hun har 10 kg sprængstoffer gemt på sig:

GAZA – Major attack thwarted: A 21-year-old would-be suicide bomber was detained by security forces at Gaza’s Erez crossing Monday morning.

Gaza resident Wafa Samir Ibraim Bas, 21 was carrying more than 10 kilograms (more than 22 pounds) of explosives and was picked up thanks to electronic anti-terror means utilized at the crossing.

Army officials said the woman surrendered only after attempting to detonate the charge at the crossing itself.

The woman was scheduled to arrive at Soroka hospital in the Southern town of Be’er Sheva for some tests Monday, and was hoping to take advantage of the medical appointment to carry out a suicide attack.

During her interrogation, the would-be bomber said she was sent by the Fatah’s al-Aqsa Brigades. The group sought to utilize the humanitarian permits issued to the woman and instructed her to carry out the attack at the hospital, she said.

Hun havde tidligere været på hospitalet for at blive behandlet, og nu mente hun så tiden var inde til at tilbagebetale venligheden ved at sprænge hospitalet i luften. Lidt om motivationen - Jerusalem Post via Jihadwatch:

Hours later in a Channel One interview at the Shikma Prison in Ashkelon, Bas, an Al Quds Open University student, at first declared that she intended to kill as many Israelis as possible. "I love Allah, I love the land of Palestine and I am a member of the Al Aksa Brigades," she said.

She said she wanted to kill up to 40 or 50 people - as many young people as possible. When asked why specifically young people, she said it was in retaliation for the death of Muhammad Dura. Dura was an 11-year-old Palestinian boy killed at the start of the Initifada, four and a half years ago in the Karni/Netzarim road.

De vil huske Muhammad Dura som den lille dreng der blev filmet mens han døde i sin fars arme, skudt af Israelske soldater på andendagen af Intifadaen - der var i hvert fald den historie man fik i medierne lige efter. Problemet er at folk allerede kort tid efter begyndte at stille spørgsmålstegn ved historien. Blandt de mærkeligheder der dukkede op om historien var at det var fysisk umuligt for de Israelske soldater at skyde drengen, og at drengens begravelse blev filmet to timer før han iflg den officielle historie blev skudt. Jihadwatch har historien her.

En anden begrundelse kvinden gav for at dræbe uskyldige var endnu en i en lang række af beskyldninger om koranskændiger, denne gang i Israel. Også denne historie viser sig at være en Palæstinensisk fabrikation (Ynetnews via Little Green Footballs):

A month ago Palestinian security prisoners detained in the Megiddo Prison claimed prison guards tore up pages from Quran copies during searches of their cells.

Prisoners apologize

The incident, which was compared to reports of Qurans that had allegedly been destroyed at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, evoked fear of possible prisoner riots.

However, a special investigative committee found the prisoners themselves had torn the Quran copies in an attempt to stir controversy.

According to the Prison Service, prisoner representatives apologized for the incident, saying it was a Hamas-affiliated minority that carried out the act.

Den Palæstinensiske koran-skænding blev for øvrigt gentaget for et par dage siden i samme fængsel, denne gang af et medlem af Islamisk Jihad. Men tilbage til Wafa Samir Ibraim Bas. Efter hun var blevet afsløret i sit forehavende begyndte de dårlig undskyldninger selvfølgelig også straks at strømme ud, trofast viderebragt af BBC:

Later, she pleaded for mercy because she "didn't kill anyone".

Jo tak, fordi Israelerne var på vagt.

In a separate interview with foreign correspondents, she said the explosives had been planted on her without her knowledge while she was being treated at a Gaza Hospital.

Spørgsmålet melder sig: hvordan "planter" man 10 kg sprængstoffer på en kvinde ved at hæfte dem til hendes undertøj uden hun opdager det? Og så i et muslimsk samfund?

"I did not intend to carry out an attack," she said, at which point Israeli security officials told reporters she was lying, the Associated Press reported.

Umiddelbart skulle man tro at det at bære rundt på 10 kg sprængstoffer og prøve at detonere dem allerede indikerede det. At hun lyver er også åbenlyst ud af en anden udtalelse:

When asked if she would launch attacks if allowed to return, she said she may consider it and that she believes "in death and Allah."

Det er folk som hende der manglede i Røde Kors´ "debatskabende" kopi af den Israelske anti-terror mur på Roskilde Festival.

Update:

ARGH!!!

Som pb rigtigt nok siger var det Folkekirkens Nødhjælp, og ikke Røde kors der stod bag muren. Jeg undskylder mange gange til Røde Kors. Så kan jeg lære ikke at stole bare på min hukommelse, kan jeg.

Henrik

Sudan Update

Som nævnt tidligere her på bloggen er der sket voldsomme skændinger af koraner i Darfur, for ikke at nævne skændinger af (og massakrer i) moskéer og henrettelser af imamer. Fra Human Rights Watch´s rapport:

In the past year, government and Janajweed forces have killed imams, destroyed mosques and prayer mats. In some villages, they have torn up and defecated on Qorans.

“We do not know why the government burns our mosques and kills our imams,” said Imam Abdullah, sixty-five, of Jalanga Kudumi. “Our Islam is good. We pray all the time. We read the Qoran all the time.”

Yet government forces and Janjaweed have burned at least sixty-five mosques in Dar Masalit and have killed scores of people in mosques.

Janjaweed who attacked Urum in November 2003 killed sixteen men as they mourned eighty-year-old Yahya Abdul Karim, and the imam and his orphaned three-year-old grandson. Janjaweed also rode into the mosque in Mulli and shot dead ten people including the imam, Yahya Gabat.

In Sandikoro, a joint army-Janjaweed force tore Qorans and defecated on them. In Kondoli, they killed the imam, Ibrahim Durra, the second imam, and the muezzin during prayers.

“The government wants to kill all African people, Muslim or not Muslim, so as to put Arabs in their places,” said Imam Abdullah.

Som man kan læse tog bloggen jeg citerede tidligere fejl, det er ikke niogtredive, men femogtres moskeer den islamiske Janjaweed-milits har brændt ned. Og det er kun i Dar Masalit-området i SV-Darfur.

Man kan så undre sig over hvorfor tre tilfælde af ukorrekt behandling af koraner på Cuba skal føre til en mediekampagne uden sidestykke, mens nedbrænding af femogtres moskéer i Afrika ignoreres. Løsningen er imidlertid enkel:

Det første kan man give USA skylden for. Det kan man ikke med det andet.

Henrik

Uge 23 i Islam

En rimeligvis ufuldstændig liste over islamiske terrorangreb i uge 23, sakset fra The religion of peace. Alene en kombinering med listen over "oprøreres" angreb på civile Irakere på Iraq Coalition Casualties ville noget nær fordoble længden af listen forneden. Jeg har også sorteret terror-angreb på amerikanske soldater i Afghanistan og Irak fra.

12. Juni
- Irak, Baghdad: 3 dræbte og 4 sårede i to selvmordsbombe-angreb.
- Rusland, Uzunova: 15 såres da tjetjenske terrorister afsporer et bumletog.
- Afghanistan, Kandahar: Taleban dræber en kvinde men en landmine. Hendes to børn og to andre kvinder såres.

11. Juni
- Thailand, Narathiwat: Muslimer dræber en 49-årig buddhistisk bygningsarbejder på vej til arbejde
- Irak, Baghdad: 10 mennesker bliver dræbt da sunnitiske terrorister sprænger en bombe i et shiitisk nabolag. Blandt de dræbte er en gravid kvinde og hendes mand.
- Irak, Najaf: To dræbes og tre såres af en bombe der sprænges på en shiitisk kirkegård. Blandt de dræbte er en 8-årig pige. Alle fem ofre tilhører samme familie.
- Irak, Diyara: Terrorister åbner ild på bygningsarbejdere der er på vej til arbejde i en bus. 11 dræbes og to såres.

10. Juni
- Thailand, Narathiwat: 2 dræbes, deriblandt en buddhist, da muslimer åbner ild i to separate angreb
- Irak, Basra: En politimand og hans bror bliver dræbt i deres bil da muslimer åbner ild.

9. Juni
- Rusland, Tver: 7 tjetjenske politimænd bliver dræbt og en såres da muslimske oprørere åbner ild med en granatkaster.
- Irak, Kirkuk: 2 Irakere bliver dræbt i et angreb på deres bil.
- Irak, Qaim: Ligene af 17 bundne og henrettede shiiter bliver fundet. Nogle af dem bar blevet halshugget.
- Thailand, Yala: En bhuddistisk teenager bliver skudt i hovedet og dræbt af muslimske separatister.
- Syrien, Damaskus: To syriske sikkerhedsfolk bliver skudt da de forsøger at arrestere en mand. En dør.

7. Juni
- India, Bahk-e-Hakar: En civilist bortføres fra sit hus og halshugges.
- Israel, Ganei Tal: Islamisk Jihad sprænger et Israelsk drivhus i luften. 3 dræbes, deriblandt en kinesisk arbejder.
- Algeriet, M'Sila: 13 soldater bliver dræbt og 6 såret da deres lastbil bliver sprængt i luften af en bombe.
- Afghanistan, Spin Boldak: 2 Pakistanske lastbil-chauffører myrdes af Taleban
- Irak, Hawija: 18 Irakere myrdes og 38 såres af en serie på 4 selvmordsbomber og andre angreb.
- Irak, Habaniyah: En civil lastbilkonvoj angribes, og 7 chauffører bliver myrdet

6. Juni
- Thailand, Bangkok: En 59-årig buddhistiske plantage-arbejder bliver taget til fange og halshugget af militante muslimer.

Totalt 105 dræbte, 74 sårede.

Henrik

Mere koran-skænding

Ud over min tidligere påpegning af at koran-skændinger ikke kun foregår på Guantanamo, men også feks i Saudi-Arabien (de makuleres hvis de er ornamenterede) løb jeg idag ind i følgende fra Muslims WakeUp!:

In May of last year, Human Rights Watch released a report which accused the Sudanese government of ethnic cleansing in Darfur. The report documented how "Sudanese government forces have overseen and directly participated in massacres, summary executions of civilians, burnings of towns and villages, and the forcible depopulation of wide swaths of land long-inhabited by the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups [of the Darfur region]." ...

The janjaweed have been particularly brutal and vicious in their attacks. These fighters have raped, pillaged, and terrorized the civilian population of Darfur, and numerous eye witnesses document coordination between the government and janjaweed forces. For instance, the Sudanese air force will bomb a village, and then a joint government- janjaweed force will attack that same village. ...

What's more, the Human Rights Watch report documented how the janjaweed destroyed mosques, killed imams, and desecrated Qur'ans of the people of Darfur. The report, in fact, listed 39 mosques in Darfur that have been destroyed by the janjaweed. More infuriating, the people of Darfur are Muslim and the janjaweed are are also Muslim. As I said previously, this report was issued last May. Where was the outrage in the Muslim world? Where were the rallies by the "Muslim faithful," their eyes flashing with rage at the desecration of the Qur'an? Where were the condemnations by the governments of various Muslim countries?

Må vi så se retfærdig vrede blandt muslimer over det her, tak?

Henrik

Göbbels ville være stolt

Anti-amerikansk propaganda får et stadig større marked i Tyskland og Frankrig for tiden, og på det seneste er konpirationsteorier begyndt at være en del af repertoiret. I Frankrig skaffede Thierry Meyssan´s løsagtige påstande om at muslimske terrorister var uskyldige i terrorangrebene 11. September, og at det faktisk var Pentagon der havde planlagt det hele ham både en bestseller og utallige talkshow-optrædender.

I Tyskland er det imidlertid nået et skridt videre - der er konspirationsteorierne nået helt ind i mainstream-medierne. Washington Post:

A fictional crime drama based on the premise that the Bush administration ordered the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington aired this week on German state television, prompting the Green Party chairman to call for an investigation. ...

Sunday night's episode of "Tatort," a popular murder mystery that has been running on state-run ARD-German television for 35 years, revolved around a
German woman and a man who was killed in her apartment.


According to the plot, which was seen by approximately 7 million Germans, the dead man had been trained to be one of the September 11 pilots but was left behind, only to be tracked down and killed by CIA or FBI assassins.

The woman, who says in the program that the September 11 attacks were instigated by the Bush family for oil and power, then is targeted, presumably to silence her. The drama concludes with the German detectives accepting the truth of her story as she eludes the U.S. government hit men and escapes to safety in an unnamed Arab country.

At det præsenteres som underholdning er en ting, men problemet er at tyskerne faktisk tror på det:

Many Germans think, for example, that the 1969 moon landing was faked, and a poll published in the weekly Die Zeit showed that 31 percent of Germans younger than 30 "think that there is a certain possibility that the U.S. government ordered the attacks of 9/11.

Ud over den anti-amerikanske vinkel har ARD også det til fælles med DR at begge er licens-financierede og nominelt uafhængige - det vil sige at licensbetalerne ingen som helst indflydelse har på propagandaen.

Henrik

Flere krigsforbrydere til Sverig-stan, tak!

Overskrift set på Ekstrabladets hjemmeside:

Sverige vil have flere krigsforbrydere

Al den tid at der allerede er op mod et tusinde krigsforbrydere i Sverige der ikke bliver retsforfulgt skulle landet måske tage sig af den sag før det begynder at importere flere?:

STOCKHOLM: War criminals and human rights violators from Afghanistan, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans find refuge in Sweden where they are protected from repatriation and never prosecuted, officials and activists say. A respected voice on human rights which is quick to denounce abuses abroad ...

But Sweden itself has only one policeman investigating human rights abusers who have found refuge on its own soil. He reckons as many as 1,000 live here, protected from deportation by a UN convention and with little risk of being brought to justice.

“If someone sits down and goes through the immigration files he or she will easily find several hundred or maybe a thousand potential war criminals,” detective superintendent Hans Olvebro, the Swedish police’s one-man war crimes unit, told Reuters. ...

Frida Blom of human rights group Swedish Peace called it “really hollow” for Sweden to tout itself as a champion of the persecuted but have one person investigating war crimes whereas Denmark has a Special International Crimes Office with 17 staff.

Her mangler vi så den sædvanlige klagesang fra de danske medier om hvordan danske forhold er i forhold til "lande vi sammenligner os med". Problemet er at det her ser bedre ud i Danmark end Sverige, så det er ikke interessant.

Nå, tilbage til Sverige:

Human rights groups believe Sweden is home, for example, to members of the Khad, Afghanistan’s secret police under Communist rule in the 1980s when 50,000 people were killed. Two Khad men in the Netherlands were accused of war crimes there last month.

They also believe it shelters members of the South Lebanon Army, a Christian-led militia set up by Israel in 1985, accused of torturing and killing Palestinians and Lebanese. When Israel pulled out in 2000 its commanders fled, some of them to Europe.

In a sample Olvebro took of 500 arrivals from a country he would not name, half were “military, police, politicians or maybe doctors who worked in prisons” warranting investigation.

Jo, Sverige er skam et lækkert sted at være.

Update:

Der er forøvrigt rigelig ammunition i medierne til at lægge Göran Perssons Sverige for had som man normalt gør Bush´s USA. Sidst i maj kunne TV2 således fortælle at Sverige laver biologiske våben for præstestyret i Iran, og idag kan Aftonbladet fortælle at Sveriges statsminister Göran Persson havde forud-viden om 11. September.

Henrik

Palæstinensisk våbenhvile - Palæstinensisk logik

Palæstinenserne leverer endnu et bevis på præcist HVOR troværdige deres løfter om våbenhvile er. Iflg JP:

En palæstinenser blev dræbt, efter at en militant, palæstinensisk gruppe havde angrebet en israelsk militærbase i den sydlige del af Gazastriben. Fire israelske soldater blev såret under angrebet, oplyser militære kilder.

To militante palæstinensere havde angrebet basen, der ligger nær Rafah grænseovergangen til Egypten, hvilket fik de israelske soldater til at gå til modangreb.

To af de sårede israeleres tilstand er livstruende.

Som naturligt er på baggrund af sådan "ordholdenhed" vælger Israelerne at beskytte sig mod sådanne angreb. Det seneste tiltag er en undervandsbarriere fra grænsen mellem Gaza-striben og Israel, og ud til søs. Ideen er at forhindre at Palæstinensiske terrorister bare svømmer op langs kysten og så slår uskyldige ihjel. Den Palæstinensiske reaktion er forudsigelig (Yahoo News via Little Green Footballs):

A Palestinian official denounced the project Friday, urging Israel to abandon its "mentality of barriers."

"This is political blindness," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. "The answer to all these woes of security and so on in is a meaningful peace process, is building the bridges with the Palestinians, is ending the occupation."

Gaza, home to 1.3 million Palestinians, is surrounded by an Israeli fence built to keep back attackers. Israel also is building a barrier to wall off the West Bank.

Den Palæstinensiske fordømmelse af de Israelske barrierer mod terrorister er hyklerisk, al den tid at Palæstinenserne for det første fortsætter angrebene på Israel, og for det andet har tjent tykt på selv at levere cementen til at bygge dem med:

The Egyptian cement scandal began nearly a year ago when Egypt offered to sell the PA some 420,000 tones of high- quality cement at extremely low prices -- at $12-15 per tone -- for the purpose of propping up the Palestinian economy, badly battered by sustained Israeli invasions through the last four years.

The cement was meant to be used to rebuild dilapidated Palestinian houses and buildings destroyed by the Israeli army, particularly in the Gaza Strip where entire neighborhoods in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip were recently bulldozed by Israel.

However, instead of honoring the benevolent gesture, corrupt businessmen -- most likely in coordination with influential figures within the PA -- snatched a license to import the cement from the PA National Economy Ministry, headed by Maher Al-Masri. Most of the cement was then sold to Israel, apparently with the knowledge of senior officials at the National Economy Ministry and close aides of Arafat. ...

One of the main authors of the investigation is Hasan Khreisha, a deputy speaker of the council and a frequent critic of Arafat's autocratic tendencies. Khreisha, an independent lawmaker, said that he had found records showing that the consignments amounted to 420,000 tones of high- quality cement. He said that the bulk of this amount -- 390,000 tones -- ended up in Israel and was sold at $80-100 per tone to Israeli contractors who were building the huge separation wall in the northern West Bank.

Ægypteren Arafat har også været dybt indvolveret:

Most scandalous is the fact that PA Chairman Yasser Arafat seems to have known all along about the affair. According to Khreisha, on 9 November, a letter was sent to the president by Al- Kidwa, informing him that an open-ended license was being issued to the Tarifis to import the cement from Egypt. Another letter reportedly notified Arafat that large amounts of the imported cement were being diverted to Israel by TCCM trucks.

Af den grund nægtede han selvfølgelig også at kommentere skandalen:

PA leader Yasser Arafat has been refusing to talk openly about the scandal, claiming that doing so would create confusion within Palestinian society and serve as a serious distraction from the national struggle. Last week, Arafat said that the affair was giving Israel and the United States additional ammunition to vilify the Palestinian leadership.

Ja, klart. Det kan jo kun have været derfor.

For at det ikke skal være løgn er den Palæstinensiske premierminister også blevet fanget med fingrene dybt nede i klejnekassen, godt igang med at tjene penge på at bygge mure og bosættelser for Israelerne:

The inquiry committee was investigating whether a cement company owned by Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei's family had been selling cement to Israeli settlements. On 11 February, Israeli Channel 10 TV reported that the Al-Quds
Cement Company was providing the materials to help build Israel's Apartheid Wall. Television footage also showed cement mixers leaving the Al-Quds company and driving to the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, just a few kilometres away. Qurei denied the claims.

Dobbeltmoral på Arabisk.

Update:

Nå ja, i skal da lige have fortsættelsen af den Palæstinensiske fordømmelse med:

"I hope the Israeli mentality of barriers will end," Erekat said. "Now they have land barriers and tomorrow sea barriers and the day after sky barriers and what else? Will they put a barrier around each Palestinian individual or house?"

Se, DET var jo en ide :-)

Update:

En Israeler i JP, via Polemiken:

“Vi kom her og forvandlede en sandørken til verdens bedste og højest udviklede landbrug. Tag en kilometer mod vest og se den arabiske del. De har fået millioner og atter millioner i tilskud fra hele verden. Men der er ikke et græsstrå, ikke et kulturhus, intet. Kun had, had, had.”

Henrik

Ingen Amerikansk Gulag

Amnesty International har tabt enormt i prestige efter de var dumme nok til at sammenligne fængslingen af mistænkte terrorister på Guantanamo med Sovjetunionens GuLag. Fanget i hvad der er en åbenlys proportionsforvrængning prøver de nu at få en tidligere GuLag-fange til at sige at det har de da ret i. En af dem de kontaktede var Pavel Litvinov, og ordvekslingen er sigende - Washington Post via Little Green Footballs:

Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a longtime Amnesty International staffer. He asked me whether I, as a former Soviet "prisoner of conscience" adopted by Amnesty, would support the statement by Amnesty's executive director, Irene Khan, that the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is the "gulag of our time."

"Don't you think that there's an enormous difference?" I asked him.

"Sure," he said, "but after all, it attracts attention to the problem of Guantanamo detainees."

Amnesty er altså godt klar over at de intet har at have deres påstande i...men målet retfærdiggør jo midlerne.

Hr. Litvinov har også nogle betragtninger om at Bush SKAL holdes ansvarlig hvis han engang skulle være ansvarlig for krænkelser af menneskerettighederne. Læs selv resten.

Henrik

Hundredvis af kriminelle stormer strand

Ekstrabladet fortæller, via Angantyrs Hjørne under overskriften "Masserøveri på badestrand i Portugal" om hvordan fem hundrede unge kriminelle stormede en badestrand og begyndte at tæve de derværende badegæster og frarøve dem alt af værdi. I EBs ord:

En bande på omkring 500 unge angreb og røvede fredag skræmte turister på en badestrand i nærheden af Cascais, der ligger 15 kilometer vest for den portugisiske hovedstad Lissabon. ...

- Små grupper af unge i alderen 12-20 år forsamlede sig og overfaldt på må og få de folk, de kom forbi på stranden, fortæller den lokale caféejer Helder Gabriel, der skyndte sig at lukke sin café af frygt for overfald. ...

I alt 60 betjente blev sendt til området, og ifølge øjenvidner blev der skudt advarselsskud op i luften. Fem personer heriblandt to betjente blev lettere såret, og i alt fire unge blev anholdt. Resten blev eskorteret til toget af politiet.

Ekstrabladet vælger som de fleste andre medier ikke at nævne at de fem hundrede overfaldsmænd var indvandrere fra Afrika (Travel Channel via Angantyrs Hjørne):

On a sunny national holiday, scores of beachgoers were stretched out in the sands at Portugal's Carcavelos beach, when like a swarm of locusts some 500 youths descended on the relaxed crowd, stirring up panic as they robbed the stunned bathers. ...

The youths, from 12 to 20 years old, were apparently second-generation immigrants who organized into gangs, according to initial police reports. ...

The gangs made a clean sweep of Carcavelos beach, acting aggressively and mugging the sunbathers en masse, police and witnesses said.

Panicking, the bathers fled, some losing track of their children in the confusion.

Police called for reinforcements and fired guns into the air. Five people, including two police officers, were injured and four suspects were arrested.

Man kan selvfølgelig slå det hen som et enestående tilfælde, men umiddelbart ser det ikke lovende ud. Opmuntrede af succesen forsøgte indvandrerbanderne at gentage den snart efter:

While Carcavelos, under heightened police security, was almost deserted on Saturday, in southern Portugal's Algarve, authorities said they broke up a group of 50 youths at Quarteira beach who were set to conduct a copycat operation.

Det er heller ikke begrænset til Portugal - Frankrig oplevede noget lignende i marts, hvor op til tusinde indvandrere løb en fredelig demonstration over ende:

Hundreds of young rioters from poor Paris suburbs disrupted the demonstration on March 8, beating teenagers to the ground and stealing mobile telephones and cameras. ...

Le Monde newspaper carried disturbing interviews with attackers and
victims in last week's trouble - both sides agreeing that the violence was exclusively carried out on white boys and girls by black and Arab
teenagers.

"If I went, it was not to demonstrate but to take telephones and
beat people up. There were groups of people running about stirring things up, and in the middle these idiots - these little French people just asking for it," an 18-year-old of Tunisian origin called Heikel said.

"We came to demonstrate against inequalities and we got beaten up. It's as if they thought that we - the "white Parisians " - had plenty of money, that we could buy a new mobile phone tomorrow," said Tristan Goldbronn, 16, who was badly hurt.

Police estimated that between 700 and 1,000 youngsters came into the city centre to spoil the March 8 demonstration, most of them from the Seine-Saint-Denis department in the northern suburbs.

Heikel, who attends a secondary school in the area, told Le Monde that the mainly white Parisian students who took part in the march - known in street parlance as "bolos" - were seen as spoilt and privileged, and therefore fair game.

"A bolo - he's a sitting duck, a victim," he said.

Da skoleeleverne ugen efter demonstrerede igen blev flere tusinde af dem væk, på trods af at hundredvis af politifolk og kamplædte fagforeningsaktivister beskyttede dem:

Thousands of French high-school students who demonstrated against the government in central Paris Tuesday were protected by an extensive security detail after violence and muggings that marred a similar march a week ago.

Unions provided an escort of several hundred stewards and police controlled access to the route between Republique and Nation squares. The march passed off peacefully with only a handful of arrests. ...

Student leaders said that many pupils who would have demonstrated again against the government's education policies had been scared away by last week's
violence. Police said 6,000 took part Tuesday compared to 9,000 on March 8.

Er det kun mig, eller er det lidt sigende at en "fredelig" demonstration i sådan et klima kun producerer "en håndfuld" arresterede? Det er heller ikke mange år siden lige dele autonome og indvandrere drog hærgende igennem indre København, smadrende alt på deres vej.

Henrik

Downing Street memos taber i værdi

Bloggen Captains Quarters har en udmærket kommentar om de såkaldte Downing Street memo´s, som anti´erne påstår "beviser" at Bush-adminisrationen lyver:

The media and the Leftists have had a field day with the Downing Street memos that they claim imply that the Bush administration lied about the intelligence on WMD in order to justify the attack on Iraq. Despite the fact that none of the memos actually say that, none of them quote any officials or any documents, and that the text of the memos show that the British government worried about the deployment of WMD by Saddam against Coalition troops, Kuwait and/or Israel, the meme continues to survive.

Until tonight, however, no one questioned the authenticity of the documents provided by the Times of London. That has now changed, as Times reporter Michael Smith admitted that the memos he used are not originals, but retyped copies .....

This, in fact, could very well be another case of "fake but accurate", where documents get created after the fact to support preconceived notions about what happened in the past. One fact certainly stands out -- Michael Smith cannot authenticate the copies. And absent that authentication, they lose their value as evidence of anything.

Mere er der vist ikke at sige om den sag.

Henrik

Hurricane

I forgårs kunne man se den amerikanske film "The Hurricane" om Rubin "Hurricane" Carter i fjernsynet. Den var komplet med en stakkels sort mand der blev buret inde af racistiske hvide politifolk for et tredobbelt drab han "i virkeligheden" slet ikke begik, men til sidst endelig blev frikendt.

Problemet er at filmen udelukkende er baseret på en mands version af sagen - Rubin Carters egen.

For en rimeligt anderledes vinkel - godt støttet af reelle beviser frem for Carters påstande - klik her eller her.

Henrik

Manden, der satte koran-optøjerne igang

De fleste husker balladen om Newsweeks beskyldninger om koran-skænding på Guantanamo der senere viste sig at være usande. Hvad knapt så mange ved er, at det var den Pakistanske politiker Imran Khan der for egen vindings skyld fik historien spredt til den islamiske verden, hvor den startede optøjer der kostede 15 mennesker livet.

The Weekly Standard har taget Imran Khan under kærlig behandling:

Khan embodies the hypocrisy of Muslim elites who inveigh against the West by day and enjoy its pleasures by night. His fame in Pakistan comes from cricket not politics: Khan is the best cricketer Pakistan has ever produced. But in London many remember him as an even greater playboy. Throughout the 1980s Khan was linked to a string of beautiful women. In 1988 he told Australia's Sunday Mail, "Pakistan society encourages marriage. There, I lead a very steady, comfortable life. Here, it is more exciting. The pace is faster. Because of the nightclubs and parties, it is a very good place to be single."

But as his cricket career wound down and he began to develop political ambitions, Khan became more reticent about his lifestyle. In 1992 when a London Evening Standard reporter asked him if he found his conquests fulfilling he turned bashful: "Er, by answering that question I put myself in a difficult position because this will get quoted in Pakistan. And in Pakistan, the mere fact that you admit you're having affairs upsets a lot of people's sensitivities. I respect my own culture and a lot of young people look up to me. It's a big responsibility for me not to make these admissions in public. Everyone knows I'm a single man and a normal man. But there's no need to stick it down their throats." His ex-girlfriends were less discreet, though. One observed to the Times, that same year, that Imran "juggled his girlfriends extremely elegantly . . . and he likes mangoes."

After his playing career ended in 1992, Khan entered politics under the tutelage of Lt.-Gen. Hamid Gul, the former Pakistani intelligence chief famous for fueling the Taliban's rise in Afghanistan. (Gul believes that September 11 was a U.S. conspiracy.) Khan, a man who once captained the Oxford University cricket team and was a feature at London's trendiest places, now turned against the culture he had previously enjoyed.

Læs resten her.

Henrik

Oprør i Kina

Da nu det sidste indlæg nævnte "...and defensively uses fiscal policy to prevent mass upheaval" tænkte jeg at jeg ville komme med eksempler på netop det - "mass upheaval". Ifølge Guardian:

According to government statistics, protests increased by 15% last year to 58,000, with more than 3 million people taking part. In many provincial capitals, roadblocks occur more than once a week.

Det er så ifølge regeringen, der har en interesse i at nedtone det hele. To eksempler fra for nylig: I april gjorde beboerne i byen Huankantou oprør og drev 1000 kampklædte uro´ere ud af deres by:

There is a strange new sightseeing attraction in this normally sleepy corner of the Chinese countryside: smashed police cars, rows of trashed buses and dented riot helmets.

They are the trophies of a battle in which peasants scored a rare and bloody victory against the communist authorities, who face one of the most serious popular challenges to their rule in recent years.

In driving off more than 1,000 riot police at the start of the week, Huankantou village in Zhejiang province is at the crest of a wave of anarchy that has seen millions of impoverished farmers block roads and launch protests against official corruption, environmental destruction and the growing gap between urban wealth and rural poverty.

Et andet eksempel er fra Shengyou, fra igår:

Six Chinese farmers died and 100 were injured in a riot over compensation for farm land that was seized for redevelopment, the Washington Post reported, citing a video of the incident shot by one of the farmers.

The incident, which occurred on June 11, took place in Shengyou, a town 100 kilometers (60 miles) outside Beijing, the Post said.

Officials in charge of a state-owned power plant in Shengyou wanted the land for redevelopment, the Post reported, citing various farmers it didn't identify. The farmers, who had pitched tents and dug foxholes and trenches on the land, were quoted saying the assailants were hired by ``corrupt'' officials.

The video of the incident was shot by Niu Zhanzong, 50, whose arm was broken in the fight and who was able to smuggle the video out through a local reporter who was in the area, the Post said.

BBC har mere, incl video af optøjerne:

Dramatic footage has emerged of a riot in a Chinese village at the weekend in which six people are reported to have been killed.

The pictures show local farmers fighting a pitched battle with dozens of unknown men wearing camouflage gear and construction helmets.

Hunting rifles and clubs were used in the bloody clashes in the northern village of Shenyou.

Krigsførsel i lille skala.

Henrik

Myten om den kommende supermagt Kina

De sidste mange år har vi hørt på hvordan de fleste medier har forudsagt at Kina snart bliver en økonomisk supermagt. Nogle mener imidlertid ikke det er tilfældet, og følgende stemmer til eftertanke - der argumenteres for at vi skal holde øjne med Indien istedet:

The "smart money" literally favors China. Foreign companies pour billions upon billions into direct investment there. But what if they are pouring 21st-century dollars or yen into a great 20th-century power? Politically, China is ruled by Leninists who must maintain the status quo. Militarily it relies on a large, underequipped land army. Economically it has adapted and mastered Henry Ford's assembly line on a continental scale. Financially it hordes its cash, regulates its markets with zeal and defensively uses fiscal policy to prevent mass upheaval.

Even the Bush administration's trade arguments with China come from the past. While the United States and India argue about problems of the future, such as intercontinental outsourcing, the U.S.-China quarrel smacks of the Bretton Woods conference of 1944. Washington wants Beijing to revalue its currency as a way of cutting the staggering trade imbalances spinning out of low-wage manufacturing. ...

The Middle Kingdom serves as a platform to bring together capital, cheap labor and industrial technology from throughout the region and ultimately the world. China relies on this empire, but does not totally control it.

India, on the other hand, has set out to become "a global knowledge hub, with a central place in the transnational movement of knowledge and services," Nath said in a conversation here last week. He argued that India's comparative advantage lies in its large and relatively young educated population. Seventy percent of India's 1.1 billion people are literate -- many of them are fluent in English -- and about half are under 30.

Efter at have læst artiklen er jeg faktisk kommet til at tænke på at man i Danmark generelt har hørt om at det er fabriks-jobs der forsvinder til Kina, mens Indien tager sig af kundeservice og IT-opgaver.

Det stemmer til eftertanke.

Henrik

Menneskeofringer i England

Som nævnt før her på bloggen lader det til at kulturberigelsen har nået nye højder i England takket være importen af visse grupper af Afrikanske indvandrere. Seneste multikulturelle tilføjelse er menneskeofringer:

Boys 'used for human sacrifice'

Children are being trafficked into the UK from Africa and used for human sacrifices, a confidential report for the Metropolitan Police suggests.

Children are being beaten and even murdered after being labelled as witches by pastors, the report leaked to BBC Radio 4's Today programme said.

Police face a "wall of silence" in investigations because of fear and mistrust among the groups involved.

It follows the case of a girl tortured by her guardians for being a witch. ...

Det tilfælde har jeg behandlet tidligere her. Flere detaljer om de afrikanske ritualer:

"The most gruesome details come from the African communities," he said.

"This report talks of rituals, of witchcraft, being practised in churches in London. It is described as big business."

'Dead meat'

It said that people who are desperate seek out churches to cast spells for them.

"Members of the workshop said for spells to be powerful it required a sacrifice of a male child unblemished by circumcision," the report said.

Contributors said boys were being trafficked into the UK for this purpose, but did not give details because they said they feared they would be "dead meat" if they told any more.

There were also claims that youngsters were being smuggled into the UK as domestic slaves and for men with HIV who believed if they had sex with a child they would be cleansed. ...

"A few weeks ago the Met put out a number of 300 black children missing from schools.

"There's no evidence that any of these children have been traced.

Selvfølgelig skal noget sådant bortforklares:

But Dr William Les Henry, a lecturer in sociology at Goldsmith's College, said there was an element of racism about the report.

He said: "The model that they're based on, they always seem to base their models on the fact that Africans are less civilized, less rational, so their whole systems of
rationality are irrational."

Der er jo ingen grund til reelt at tage stilling til hvad der er sket, når man kan beskylde nogen for racisme. BBC fortæller ikke at manden selv er sort og at han åbenbart har en forkærlighed for at fordømme påståede "kulturelle barrierer" som sorte ifølge ham står over for.

I mellemtiden er den ovennævnte praksis med at voldtage børn for at blive kureret for AIDS velkendt i Sydafrika (artiklen er fra November 2001):

Although South Africa enjoys one of the highest incidences of rape in the world...few things have galvanized such universal outrage across all racial groups as the recent gang rape of a 9-month-old baby by six men in the Northern Cape. ...

In particular, the case has dramatized the fact that many rapes in South Africa are committed against minors, often because it is believed in this AIDS-stricken country that only sex with a virgin will free one of the HIV virus. ...

This in turn has made girls of younger and younger ages vulnerable to men who believe that only sex with a virgin will cleanse them of the spell of AIDS. And it must be emphasized that AIDS is often seen as the result of black magic. At the rural clinic in Izingolweni (southern KwaZulu-Natal) which I visited last week Sister Irene Bopela told me that "Typically men come here saying their family has been bewitched. What this actually means is that the man has become HIV positive while in town and then, on returning to the rural area, has infected his wife and has, in rapid succession, had two or more children. Then they realize that the whole family is dying and they say they have been bewitched. It is far easier than facing up to the man's guilt."

According to the figures released last year by the Minister for Safety and Security, Steve Tshwete, there are detailed recorded cases of 8,683 children under 18 being raped in the first six months of 1999. Mr Tshwete has, since then, refused to release any further figures but no one doubts that far more cases went unrecorded and that numbers will have increased since then.

FØJ!

Henrik

Lighed, blodpenge og kameler

I forbindelse med debatten om blodpenge på Nørrebro nævner Fjordman på Uriasposten følgende indlæg på Jihadwatch:

In the April 9, 2002 issue, The Wall Street Journal published the concept of blood money in Saudi Arabia. If a person has been killed or caused to die by another, the latter has to pay blood money or compensation, as follow.

100,000 riyals if the victim is a Muslim man
50,000 riyals if a Muslim woman
50,000 riyals if a Christian man
25,000 riyals if a Christian woman
6,666 riyals if a Hindu man
3,333 riyals if a Hindu woman

According to this hierarchy, a Muslim man's life is worth 33 times that of a Hindu woman. This hierarchy is based on the Islamic definition of human rights and is rooted in the Quran and Sharia (Islamic law). How can we talk of democracy when the concept of equality in Islam is inexistent?

Det har han jo ret i. Vi lader den lige stå lidt.

Update

Selv om det er en alvorlig sag kan jeg ikke lade være med at spekulere: hvis, som imam Abu Laban siger, blodpengene på 200.000 kroner er nået frem til ved at gange 200 kameler op med prisen på sådanne i Danmark, hvor kan jeg så få fat i en sådan kamel?

Jeg mener, en tusse er da en fair pris!

Henrik

Lidt nyt fra den 3. verden

Hurtigt nyhedsresume fra den 3. verden:

1) I Zimbabwe er den socialistiske regering under Mugabe igang med at "rydde ud i affaldet" efter eget udsagn. Det har indtil videre ført til at 30.000 er blevet arresteret, og 200.000 gjort hjemløse i løbet af bare en uge. Hvis samme effektivitet blev anvendt i landbruget kunne Mugabe nok også brødføde sin befolkning.

2) Malawi har den socialistiske regering problemer med udlandet fordi den malawiske regering har brudt FN-sanktioner mod Zimbabwe og leveret tåregas, der indtil videre har kostet 11 Zimbabwere livet.

3) I Sydafrika er socialisterne i ANC under hårdt pres efter 18 MFere er under anklage for massiv svindel i en korruptionssag, og vice-præsidenten Zuma (den sandsynlige efterfølger for præsident Mbeki) anmodes om at træde tilbage grundet en anden korruptionssag omfattende bla bestikkelse og svindel.

4) I Ethiopien har den socialistiske regeringen samtidig sat militæret ind mod studenter, der demonstrerede mod påstået massiv valgsvindel ved valget for 3 uger siden. 22 døde og over 100 blev såret efter der blev skudt ind i mængden. Samtidig er en af oppositionslederne og hans stedfortræder blevet arresteret.

På den anden side af Atlanten er problemerne ikke meget anderledes:

5) I Bolivia har en uhellig alliance af socialister, "indfødte" og narko-industrien (de demonstrerende narkobønder står for en tredjedel af verdens kokain-produktion) i snart 2 år sat landet på den anden ende med voldsomme demonstrationer (110 dræbte i konfrontationer med politi og militær i 2003) og krav om at staten skal stjæle de udenlandske investeringer i olie- og gasindustrien der er blevet opbygget de sidste 9 år. Da de de demonstrerende godt ved at de gasfelter de vil nyde godt af faktisk ligger i provinser hvor befolkningen ikke bare ikke støtter tyveriet, men også kræver autonomi, er de der for også mod en sådan. Landet er reelt delt mellem en vestlig del i Andesbjergene, hvor indianere (såcaldte Kolla´er) demonstrerer i hovedstaden La Paz for at overtage gasindustrien, og en vestlig del i lavlandet, hvor hvide og mestizer (blandet befolkning af hvid og indiansk herkomst) er for en fortsat privatisering. Den bolivianske præsident er ved at trække sig tilbage, og den designerede efterfølger har offentligt sagt at han vil sætte militæret ind mod de voldsomme demonstranter. Det kunne ende i borgerkrig.

6) I Brasilien har den socialistiske præsident Lula meget fredeligere problemer, nemlig beskyldninger om at hans regeringspartier er blevet betalt for at støtte ham.

Henrik