En noget vigtigere historie

I et indlæg i Post-Gazette prøvede Jack Kelly for nylig at irettesætte MSM for ikke at dække det reelt nyheds-værdige i Irak - at de irakiske sikkerhedsstyrker bliver stærkere og stærkere, og at de irakiske "oprørere", selv om de stadig kan slagte uskyldige i dusinvis dagligt, er ved at tabe krigen.

Mens han gjorde det gik han imidlertid åbenbart selv glip af en nyhed af enorm værdi, selv om den faktisk er med i hans indlæg. Læs selv - jeg har fremhævet det vigtige:

Al-Qaida has claimed credit for a large, sophisticated attack Monday on the two hotels in Baghdad where most foreign journalists and many defense contractors stay.

The attack failed, but it was a near-run thing.

The Palestine and Sheraton hotels are across a short street from each other, adjacent to Firdous Square, a traffic roundabout where the statue of Saddam Hussein was torn down on April 9, 2003.

The attack involved three suicide bombers and an unknown number of other fighters. The attack took place at dusk, over a span of four minutes. Several news organizations were tipped off in advance, and cameras were rolling.

Fangede i den? Når "oprørere" og journalister arbejder sammen på en sådan måde er det ikke usædvanligt, at de amerikanske tropper ser mere og mere skeptiske på de medier, hvis sikkerhed de beskytter med deres liv, mens medierne sviner dem til. Kelly fortsætter:

The view of many that the news media are the insurgents' allies was reinforced by a Reuters story Tuesday that equated the suicide attack to the incident in April 2003, when a U.S. tank fired on the Palestine Hotel, killing two journalists. (The hotel had not yet been taken by U.S. forces, who were fighting Saddam's men in the streets. The journalists were on a balcony. One was pointing a camera at the tank. At a distance, a television camera looks a great deal like a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.)

Henrik

I Katrinas kølvand - De næste katastrofer i USA

I kølvandet på orkanen Katrina har net-magasinet Wired sat sig for at lave en liste over de ti katastrofer, der står næst efter i køen - og der er masser af katastrofefilms-potentiale i den:

America's Next Top Disasters

Ranking determined by likelihood and potential impact

1. Levee Failure in the Sacramento Delta
2. Flooding in the Upper Mississippi
3. Indian Point Meltdown
4. Earthquake in Missouri
5. Eruption at Yellowstone
6. Tornadoes in Dallas
7. Landslide at Mount Rainier
8. Tsunami on the Eastern Seaboard
9. Massive Power Failure in Boston
10. Rupture in the Alaska Oil Pipeline

Rupture in the Alaska Oil Pipeline

The Alaska pipeline was built to withstand everything its designers could think of. But the supports for the pipeline are anchored in permafrost, which is now melting. Up to a third of the uprights are out of alignment, and more will be at risk if the thaw continues. A pipeline break would jeopardize 1 billion barrels of oil per day - 17 percent of the nation's capacity.
Likelihood: Low. (Admitting you have a problem is the first step to fixing it.)
People affected: Entire US population, potentially

Landslide at Mount Rainier
According to the US Geological Survey, Mount Rainier presents the "greatest volcanic hazard" in the Cascade Range because there are so many people in its shadow. The USGS says an eruption could melt Rainier's glacier, sending rivers of volcanic mud and ash - a moving wall of cement - toward Puget Sound.Likelihood: Medium. Such slides occur once or twice a millennium. It's been 550 years since the last one.People affected: 2.4 million
Eruption at YellowstoneYellowstone's pretty geysers and hot springs are powered by one of the world's most active volcanic systems. Previous eruptions buried most of North America - really - from Arkansas to Oregon, Canada to Mexico. The next one could do the same.
Likelihood: Low. But not zero.
People affected: Depending on the size of the eruption, anywhere from tens to hundreds of millions

Levee Failure in the Sacramento Delta
Next to New Orleans, the capital of California is more dependent on levees than any other US city. Built on the banks of a river, most of Sacramento is 15 to 20 feet below water level. According to UC Davis geologist Jeffrey Mount, there's a better-than-even chance that the levees will fail by midcentury, jeopardizing the water supply of 22 million Americans.
Likelihood: High. 66 percent in the next 50 years.
People affected: 22 million

Flooding in the Upper Mississippi
When you try to contain a river, you're bound to spill some. The very qualities that made the banks of the Mississippi the perfect place to start a village also make it the worst place to build anything permanent. The river produces spectacular floods about once every 20 years, no matter what we do to stop it.
Likelihood: High. The last great floods were in 1993, so we're coming due.
People affected: 72 million - everyone in the Mississippi floodplain

Tornadoes in Dallas
The National Weather Service is worried about a tornado cluster over Dallas at rush hour. The fear: A big twister traps 87,000 people in their cars and causes nearly $3 billion in property damage, making it the one of the most destructive tornadoes in US history.
Likelihood: Medium. Dallas has dodged the bullet. So far.
People affected: 5.7 million

Masssive Power Failure in Boston
A dearth of new power plants combined with a growing population means that New England is poised for summer blackouts by 2008. A blackout caused by a heat wave, like the one that hit Chicago in 1995, would be wicked bad.
Likelihood: Medium. Depends on whether new power plants get built.
People affected: 14 million

Indian Point Meltdown
In the mid-1950s, it seemed like a good idea to have a nuclear reactor 35 miles from Manhattan. Now it doesn't. When sirens sound and the evacuation orders come, even the rich may not be able to leave, since half of New York City dwellers don't have access to a car.
Likelihood: Medium. There could be one accident in 600,000 years of operation, or it could happen tomorrow.
People affected: 21 million

Earthquake in Missouri
In 1811, New Madrid, Missouri, saw the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the lower 48; it rang church bells as far away as Boston. A large temblor along the fault line would hit St. Louis and Memphis, which lack effective earthquake building codes.
Likelihood: High. 90 percent chance of a magnitude 6 or 7 quake in the next 50 years.
People affected: 3.7 million

Tsunami on the Eastern Seaboard
A small volcanic Canary Island called La Palma controls the fate of the East Coast. A 1949 eruption caused the western side of the island to slip a few yards into the Atlantic. In a future seismic event, the 500-billion-ton ridge could slide farther into the ocean, resulting in a mega-tsunami that would strike the East Coast.
Likelihood: Low. Might not happen for a few thousand years, if ever.
People affected: Everyone on the eastern seaboard

Henrik

"Politisk korrektheds-udrydder"

Angantyrs Hjørne har spottet en opmuntrende udvikling i New Zealand på initiativ fra National Party (New Zealand Herald via Angantyrs Hjørne):

National has created the menacing-sounding role of "political correctness eradicator" to counter the Government's "PC" culture that it says is eroding New Zealanders' rights and freedoms. The role is the creation of party leader Don Brash, who has given Wayne Mapp, ranked number 14 in the National line-up announced yesterday, the eradication job.

Dr Mapp, who holds a PhD in international law, gave a speech in June about getting rid of the politically correct culture. This impressed Dr Brash so much he decided to create the role. In that speech Dr Mapp said political correctness ran counter to the "basic freedoms of society".

"A person, an institution or a government is politically correct when they cease to represent the interests of the majority and become focused on the cares and concerns of minority sector groups."

Mon ikke det er en ide til Fogh?

Henrik

Valgsvindel i USA

Vandrehistorier om republikansk valgsvindel (især under præsidentvalget i 2000) har en fast plads i den radikale venstrefløjs myte-verden. I dag faldt jeg over denne historie:

Currie has been accused of irregular election practices in several lawsuits, and a review of election results, property records and databases of registered voters uncovered procedures that experts and other election officials described as questionable.

Among findings by News reporters were ballots cast by people registered to vote at abandoned and long-demolished buildings; a master voter list with 380,000 incorrect names and addresses -- including people who have died or moved out of the city; and a practice of hand-delivering ballots from senior citizens and disabled voters that were filled out in private meetings with Currie's paid election workers.

Republikanere, der fusker med valget i Florida i 2000?

Nej da: Detroit i 2005, en højborg for det Demokratiske parti. Der er meget mere i artiklen, blandt andet denne passus:

State law requires cities and townships to turn in election results to the county by 11 a.m. the morning after the election, and 42 of Wayne County's 43 municipalities complied. But Detroit's results were not turned in until nine days after the election, Jenkins said.

When the results arrived, eight of 24 poll districts and 52 of 100 absentee ballot districts had irregularities; mainly, they recorded more or fewer votes than names taken down on election night. When two separate recounts were requested by losing City Council candidates, county canvassers deemed 40 of 107 precincts selected for recount couldn't be recounted due to irregularities such as broken ballot box seals and numbers of ballots not matching the number of votes recorded on election night. That meant candidates had no way of determining the legitimacy of the vote in nearly 40 percent of Detroit's precincts selected for recount.

Føj dertil, at problemerne under præsidentvalget i 2000 fandt sted i amter med demokratiske valg-ansvarlige, samt massiv demokratisk valgsvindel under 2004-valget i Washington (staten, ikke byen - eksempler her og her) og Wisconsin, og et billede begynder at tegne sig.

Den historie får vi bare ikke - det er jo ikke onde republikanere, der står bag.

UPDATE:

Nå ja, mens jeg er i gang med det: Der er også gode indikationer på, at Kennedy blev præsident i 1960 på baggrund af massiv valgsvindel i Texas og Illinios. I forvejen fik han færre stemmer end Nixon gjorde - ikke ulig Bush´s situation vis-a-vis Gore i 2000-valget.

Henrik

Dagens gode historie

Fra BBC:

Uganda's economy has improved to such an extent that the African nation no longer qualifies for aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Det bliver nok bare ikke slået så stort op - Uganda har ikke bare gennemført alle IMFs markeds-økonomiske reformer og frivilligt genindført flerparti-demokrati, men har også med succes brugt kristne værdier som for eksempel afholdenhed til at bekæmpe spredningen af AIDS.

Henrik

Mere multi-kultur: australsk politi skal tolerere islamisk hustruvold

Herald Sun via Little Green Footballs:

POLICE are being advised to treat Muslim domestic violence cases differently out of respect for Islamic traditions and habits.

Officers are also being urged to work with Muslim leaders, who will try to keep the families together.

Women’s groups are concerned the politically correct policing could give comfort to wife bashers and keep their victims in a cycle of violence.

The instructions come in a religious diversity handbook given to Victorian police officers that also recommends special treatment for suspects of Aboriginal, Hindu and Buddhist background.
Some police officers have claimed the directives hinder enforcing the law equally.

Police are told: “In incidents such as domestic violence, police need to have an understanding of the traditions, ways of life and habits of Muslims.”

They are told it would be appreciated in cases of domestic violence if police consult the local Muslim religious leader who will work against “fragmenting the family unit”.

Ja, for vi ved hvad der sker hvis man "fragmenterer" visse muslimske familier. Hint: det har noget med "ære" og en pludselig død at gøre.

For et par uger siden var Australien også leveringsdygtig i denne historie, hvor en flok muslimske pakistanere stod anklaget for en serie af masse-voldtægter mod Australske piger. Én af dem mente, det var et oplagt forslag for hans handlinger, at hans traditionelle (læs: islamiske) kultur gjorde ham til en "tidsindstillet bombe".

Jo da. Men hvorfor i alverden så lukke dem ind i Australien i første omgang?

Henrik

Borgerkrig i Frankrig

Fra The Observer, Guardians søndags-udgave:

Hundreds of French youths fought with police and set cars ablaze in a northern Paris suburb early yesterday morning in a second successive night of rioting. ..

Firefighters extinguished more than 30 burning cars and dozens of dustbins pushed into makeshift barricades on Friday night and Saturday morning as running battles in the streets of the north-eastern suburb pitted more than 200 riot police against scores of hooded youths. At least one shot was fired at the police, 19 people were detained and 15 officers and one journalist injured, an official spokesman said.

An officer from police trade union Action Police CFTC called for help from the army to support police officers. 'There's a civil war under way in Clichy-sous-Bois at the moment,' Michel Thooris from Action Police CFTC, said. 'My colleagues neither have the equipment nor the practical nor theoretical training for street fighting.'

Clichy-sous-Bois is home to 28,300 people a large number of whom are recent immigrants from North or Central Africa (Nordafrikanere = muslimske arabere - Henrik). Most live in rundown, low-rise public housing estates. Unemployment rates are among the highest in France and many locals see the police as 'the enemy'.

Pt er der 3-5 millioner muslimer i Frankrig, og der bliver flere og flere.

UPDATE:

En lidt mere end et år gammen artikel fra National Review sætter franskmændenes problem i perspektiv:

We've been hearing a lot about no-go areas in Iraq. Well, just to put the matter into perspective, here is some data on no-go areas in France. (I'm obliged to Jerry Pournelle for pointing me to this.)

In Le Figaro daily dated Feb 1, 2002, Lucienne Bui Trong, a criminologist working for the French government's Renseignements Generaux (General Intelligence — a mix of FBI and secret service), complains that the survey system she had created for accurately denumbering the Muslim no-go zones was dismantled by the government. She wrote: 'From 106 hot points in 1991, we went to 818 sensitive areas in 1999. That's for the whole country. These data were not politically correct.' Since she comes from a Vietnamese background, Ms. Bui Trong cannot be suspected of racism, of course, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to start this survey in the first place.

The term she uses, 'sensitive area,' is the PC euphemism for these places where anything representing a Western institution (post office truck, firemen, even mail order delivery firms, and of course cops) is routinely ambushed with Molotov cocktails, and where war weapons imported from the Muslim part of Yugoslavia are routinely found.

The number 818 is from 2002. I'd go out on a limb and venture that it hasn't decreased in two years.

Note the French govt's response to these unpleasant statistics — they stopped collecting the statistics!

Hvad man ikke ved, har man ikke ondt af. Eller....

Henrik

Nu er bøger om svin også fornærmende for muslimer

Fra BBC:

A West Yorkshire head teacher has banned books containing stories about pigs from the classroom in case they offend Muslim children.

The literature has been removed from classes for under-sevens at Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery School in Batley.

Head Barbara Harris said the books would remain in the school library for children to read.
Sixty per cent of the school's pupils are of Pakistani or Indian origin and 99% of these pupils are Muslims.

School library

Mrs Harris said in a statement: "Recently I have been aware of an occasion where young Muslim children in class were read stories about pigs.

"We try to be sensitive to the fact that for Muslims talk of pigs is offensive."

The head teacher sent a memo to staff saying fiction books containing stories about pigs should be removed from early years and key stage one classrooms.

Bemærk, at der intet er om, at det muslimske flertal på skolen faktisk har krævet bøgerne fjernet - det er rent kulturelt selvhad fra overlærerinden.

Henrik

Terror-celler sprængt i Danmark og Bosnien

Der begynder efterhånden at komme flere og flere detaljer frem i sagen om den danske terror-celle. Der er indtil videre 6 arresterede i sagen:

I Sarajevo, anholdt 19. Oktober:

1. En 18-årig mand med tyrkisk statsborgerskab, men dansk opholdstilladelse og bopæl i København.
2. En 19-årig mand med både svensk og montenegrinsk statsborgerskab og havde haft bopæl i Kungsälv i Sverige siden i sommers. Han var indvandret til Sverige med sine forældre i starten af 1990erne.

En tredje mand, en bosnier, bliver også arresteret den 19. oktober, men bliver siden løsladt igen. Den 28. oktober bliver yderligere fire mand anholdt i Storkøbenhavn:

1. En 16-årig dreng af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl i Brøndby.
2. En 16-årig dreng af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl i København.
3. En 18-årig mand af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl i Brøndby.
4. En 20-årig mand af mellemøstlig herkomst med bopæl på Frederiksberg.

De er alle fire opvokset i Danmark, men kun én har dansk statsborgerskab. Tre bor stadig hjemme hos deres forældre. For de to´s vedkommende er deres konvertering til ekstrem islam først sket inden for det sidste års tid. Alle seks arresterede kendte hinanden på forhånd.

Efter hvad der hidtil er blevet offentliggjort, starter sagen for godt en måned siden, da tyrkeren fra Danmark og Montenegrineren fra Sverige sammen rejser til Bosnien. Takket være tips fra det svenske sikkerhedspoliti SÄPO (om montenegrineren) og den tyrkiske efterretningstjeneste (om tyrkeren) er de bosniske myndigheder stort set opmærksomme på de to terroristspirer fra starten af.

I løbet af de næste uger flytter de fra lejlighed til lejlighed mens de samler våben og sprængstoffer, og ender til sidst i en (deres tredje) lejlighed i Sarajevo-forstaden Illidza, som de lejer af en bosnier. Forberedelser bliver truffet til at sende våben og sprængstoffer til Danmark af det lager, de efterhånden har fået opbygget (automatvåben, ammunition, snigskytte-geværer og 30-35 kilogram sprængstoffer). Det lader til at have været tildannelsen af en del af de oplagrede sprængstofferne til et bælte til en selvmordsbomber, der gjorde udslaget for de bosniske myndigheder, og det bosniske politi slår til mod to adresser den 19. oktober.

Under razziaen mod tyrkerens og montenegrinerens lejlighed forsøger disse at forhindre politiet i at komme ind, og en af dem trækker en pistol. Begge overmandes dog og arresteres. Deres bosniske udlejer aresteres også, men løslades siden.

De bosniske myndigheder giver også et tip til deres danske kolleger under efterforskningen, hvorefter PET begynder telefon-aflytning af i hvert fald de fire fundamentalister, der siden arresteres. Da politiet mener at have en bekræftet mistanke til de fire slår de til mod adskillige adresser den 27. oktober og arresterer 25 mennesker. Ud over de fire drejer det sig om 21 venner og familie-medlemmer, der dog løslades hurtigt.

Under husundersøgelserne beslaglægges blandt andet 200.000 kroner i kontanter, computere, mobiltelefoner, adressebøger og telefinlister. I tiden efter foretages talrige yderligere husundersøgelser, men indtil videre er der ikke foretaget flere arrestationer.

Det er så her, vi står nu.

Hvis nogen har brug for links til nogen del af det ovenstående kan jeg kontaktes gennem kommentar-sektionen.

Henrik

Fra det multikulturelle overdrev

Fra Jyllandsposten:

I går blev yderligere to anholdt i forbindelse med drabet på 19-årige Ghazala Khan. Faderen og onklen varetægtsfængslet. Politiet i Slagelse fortsætter jagten på familiemedlemmer og venner til den myrdede 19-årige Ghazala Khan, der sammen med sin nygifte mand blev skudt foran Slagelse Station for fire uger siden.

I går blev to venner af familien anholdt i København, og det skete samtidig med, at Ghazala Khans far og onkel blev fremstillet ved lukkede grundlovsforhør i Slagelse, sigtet for medvirken til drab. Dermed er fem nære familiemedlemmer heriblandt Ghazala Khans far, hendes bror, der havde fingeren på aftrækkeren, en tante og en onkel samt endnu et familiemedlem sigtet for drabet eller medvirken til det. Det samme var tre nære venner til familien.

Faderen udtalte sig så sent som onsdag - få timer før sin anholdelse - til Ekstra Bladet, hvor han sagde, at »hans hjerte fortsat gjorde for ondt til at tale om sagen.«

Efterforsker stadigHos politiet i Slagelse, der bistås af Rigspolitiet i opklaringen, arbejdes der på højtryk.

»Vi kan fortsat ikke udelukke, at vi skal have anholdt flere. Der er en ret stor efterforskning i gang, og der er en grund til, at vi er meget lukkede i sagen,« siger vicekriminalinspektør Leif Vinther, Slagelse Politi.

Bare de får hevet problemet op med rode.

Henrik

De nye puritanere

Fra The Observer, The Guardian´s søndags-udgave:

'Something very interesting, indeed radical, is happening to Britain,' confirms Jim Murphy, associate director of the Future Foundation, the trends forecaster which coined the term 'New Puritan'. 'If you look at the way our lives are filled with different kinds of social opprobrium, a lot of people are increasingly under ethical pressures which influence their choices.'

According to the Future Foundation, we are increasingly curbing our enthusiasm for profligate consumption, and health and environment-threatening behaviours. Gone is the guilt-free pleasure-seeker, to be replaced by the model well-meaning citizen, the New Puritan - a tag interchangeable with neo-Cromwellian, if you really want to seal its 17th century origins - who thinks through the consequences of activities previously thought of as pleasurable and invariably elects to live without them. Think of it as the dieticians' favourite adage, 'a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips' given socio-economic resonance.

Arguably, these personal codes of conduct would be an arresting enough story on their own, but the New Puritan's curbs must also be extended to other people's behaviour, and wherever possible enshrined by legislation - for New Puritans do not fear the nanny state. According to Murphy, 'In common with all important movements, this one has a silent march. It's under-noticed and under-observed.'

Such stealth might suit elements of the movement quite well, especially when it comes to tackling the menace of the Sports Utility Vehicle. Part of the New Puritan brief is to penalise those who make poor choices on behalf of the rest of society - in this case the gas-guzzling, emissions-generating Montessori wagons that choke our town centres. In Paris, the well-supported rage against this particular machine comes in the form of Les Degonfles (The Deflated), a clandestine team who, in the dead of night, run round deflating the tyres of SUVs and splattering them with mud. Les Degonfles aim to deflate about 40 SUVs a week.

In the UK, the job of deterring SUVs has fallen to Sian Berry, a rational and reasonable young woman who runs the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s and spends her spare time posting offending vehicles with fake fixed penalty notices. Granted, this is lowintensity warfare; but if governments won't legislate - only Sweden has brought in plans to ban non-registered 4x4s, in Stockholm - then the New Puritans will go it alone, with only their principles for company.
Admittedly, these principles vary. But you can guess that a New Puritan does not binge drink, smoke, buy big brands, take cheap flights, eat junk food, have multiple sexual partners, waste money on designer clothes, grow beyond their optimum weight, subscribe to celebrity magazines, drive a flash car, or live to watch television. And the list is likely to grow longer: research by the Future Foundation has found that 80 per cent of people agreed that alcohol should not be allowed at work at all; 25 per cent said snack products should not be offered at business meetings; more than a third agreed that we should think twice before giving sweets and chocolates as gifts to family and friends, and a further 25 per cent thought that 'the government should start a campaign to discourage people from drinking alcohol on their own at home' (this rises to 41 per cent in Scotland).

These are all statistics that I find comforting, but it's obvious that this wave of opprobrium-bearers makes Jim Murphy more than a little uncomfortable - his original report on the phenomenon bears the pejorative title Assault on Pleasure.

'Ten years ago, many of these propositions would have been preposterous,' he says. 'My mother, for instance, would have thought it a terrible blow not to give a child sweeties; now the debate centres around whether it's in any way acceptable to do that. And by 2015,' he ventures, 'global tourism could be in decline, because taking a flight to Costa Rica is considered a terribly irresponsible thing to do.' Murphy also points out that a significant proportion of people agree that 'food companies should be made to pay a levy to the NHS for the cost of treating obesity'. ..

If New Puritans want to spread their 'good' behaviour to the population at large then, it could be argued, they need a populist approach, which is where Jamie Oliver comes in. He might not be a fully fledged NP - what with the enormous bank balance and supermarket adverts - but his campaign to kick the junk out of school dinners has had a knock-on effect rivalled only by Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me, which took McDonald's to task. When education secretary Ruth Kelly announced a nationwide ban on junk food in schools from next September, in canteens as well as vending machines, the Jamie Oliver effect was very much in evidence.
So, with a few grand gestures and some high-profile converts New Puritanism offers a powerful escape route from our impulsive, reward-driven lifestyles. It might just have the potential to stave off the horrors promised by an out-of-control consumerist culture in which, according to agrarian essayist Wendell Berry, 'The histories of all products will be lost. The degradation of products and places, producers and consumers is inevitable.'

Consider the New Puritan philosophy from this point of view and it can look like a blueprint for a rather noble kind of empowerment. Our New Puritans become less like neurotic killjoys and more like early adopters, with an enhanced ability to recognise the pitfalls of contemporary life. A battle is shaping up between the New Puritans and the old guard libertarians, but at the moment it's a vastly uneven one. The New Puritans might be a trend, but it's still a small one, swimming against a seemingly inexorable consumerist river.

But New Puritans shouldn't be deterred. As Oliver Cromwell, their ancestral spiritual leader, put it: 'A few honest men [and let's add in women for contemporary relevance] are better than numbers.'

Læs resten selv, inklusive et par portrætter af "Nye Puritanere" og en test for at se om du selv er en.

UPDATE:

En anden artikel om de nye puritanere, under titlen "The Assault on Pleasure".

Henrik

"Os" og "Dem"

Et vanen tro godt indlæg fra Thomas Sowell på Real Clear Politics:

A reader recently sent me an e-mail about a woman he had met and fallen for. Apparently the attraction was mutual -- until one fateful day the subject of the environment came up.

She was absolutely opposed to any drilling for oil in Alaska, on grounds of what harm she said it would do to the environment.

He argued that, since oil was going to be drilled for somewhere in the world anyway, was it not better to drill where there were environmental laws to provide at least some kinds of safeguards, rather than in countries where there were none?

That was the end of a beautiful relationship.

Environmentalist true believers don't think in terms of trade-offs and cost-benefit analysis. There are things that are sacred to them. Trying to get them to compromise on those things would be like trying to convince a Moslem to eat pork, if it was only twice a week.

Compromise and tolerance are not the hallmarks of true believers. What they believe in goes to the heart of what they are. As far as true believers are concerned, you are either one of Us or one of Them.

The man apparently thought that it was just a question of which policy would produce which results. But many issues that look on the surface like they are just about which alternative would best serve the general public are really about being one of Us or one of Them -- and this woman was not about to become one of Them.

Many crusades of the political left have been misunderstood by people who do not understand that these crusades are about establishing the identity and the superiority of the crusaders.

T.S. Eliot understood this more than half a century ago when he wrote: "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

In this case, the man thought he was asking the woman to accept a certain policy as the lesser of two evils, when in fact he was asking her to give up her sense of being one of the morally anointed.

This is not unique to our times or to environmentalists. Back during the 1930s, in the years leading up to World War II, one of the fashionable self-indulgences of the left in Britain was to argue that the British should disarm "as an example to others" in order to serve the interests of peace.

When economist Roy Harrod asked one of his friends whether she thought that disarming Britain would cause Hitler to disarm, her reply was: "Oh, Roy, have you lost all your idealism?"
In other words, it was not really about which policy would produce what results. It was about personal identification with lofty goals and kindred souls.

The ostensible goal of peace was window-dressing. Ultimately it was not a question whether arming or disarming Britain was more likely to deter Hitler. It was a question of which policy would best establish the moral superiority of the anointed and solidify their identification with one another.

"Peace" movements are not judged by the empirical test of how often they actually produce peace or how often their disarmament tempts an aggressor into war. It is not an empirical question. It is an article of faith and a badge of identity.

Yasser Arafat was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace -- not for actually producing peace but for being part of what was called "the peace process," based on fashionable notions that were common bonds among members of what are called "peace movements."

Meanwhile, nobody suggested awarding a Nobel Prize for peace to Ronald Reagan, just because he brought the nuclear dangers of a decades-long cold war to an end. He did it the opposite way from how members of "peace movements" thought it should be done.

Reagan beefed up the military and entered into an "arms race" that he knew would bankrupt the Soviet Union if they didn't back off, even though arms races are anathema to members of "peace movements." The fact that events proved him right was no excuse as far as members of "peace movements" were concerned. As far as they were concerned, he was not one of Us. He was one of Them.

Henrik

En irakisk meningsmåling af tvivlsom kvalitet

The Sunday Telegraph kunne for et par dage siden afsløre, at det britiske forsvarsministerium havde fået foretaget en meningsmåling i Irak, der viste at under halvdelen af den irakiske befolkning (45%) mente, at angreb på koalitionsstyrkerne var retfærdiggjorte. Der er imidlertid flere problemer med avisens raport.

Til at starte med har jeg problemer med at stole på avisens upartiskhed, al den tid at den på trods af dusinvis af meningsmålinger om emnet kan påstå at lige præcis denne "demonstrates for the first time the true strength of anti-Western feeling in Iraq after more than two and a half years of bloody occupation".

Der er også problemer med selve raportens trovædrighed, al den tid at intet bliver fortalt om metoden, den er foretaget efter, hvor stor en gruppe interviews der er foretaget, og hvor repræsentativ den er. Jeg tænker for eksempel på Kurderne, der udgør 20% af befolkningen og, takket være koalitionsstyrkerne, slap af med den diktator der kostede over 100.000 af dem livet.

Da Sunday Telegraph citerer raporten for at 82% af befolkningen er "stærkt imod" tilstedeværelsen af koalitions-styrker, skulle det betyde at hver evig eneste araber i landet skulle være inkluderet heri, hvortil kommer hver tiende Kurder. Noget sådant virker ikke sandsynligt.

En yderligere brik i puslespillet er ophavsmændene til rapporten:

The survey was conducted by an Iraqi university research team that, for security reasons, was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces.

Den berygtede Lancet-rapport blev udført på en lignende måde, og resultaterne af den er for længe siden blevet grundigt diskrediteret, blandt andet på bloggen her.

Bloggeren Seixon - en amerikaner bosat i Norge - har også undret sig lidt, og har sammenlignet rapportens resultater med UN Iraq Living Conditions Survey fra August 2004:

Opinions are much easier to change than real world situations. That's why I felt it was important to view the other results of this poll, which were:

Immediately after the war the coalition embarked on a campaign of reconstruction in which it hoped to improve the electricity supply and the quality of drinking water.

That appears to have failed, with the poll showing that 71 per cent of people rarely get safe clean water, 47 per cent never have enough electricity, 70 per cent say their sewerage system rarely works and 40 per cent of southern Iraqis are unemployed.

I love the qualifiers in use here, this "appears to have failed". Right. It just so happens that the UN did an Iraq Living Conditions Survey back in 2004, of 21,668 households. It is very doubtful that this research team from an Iraqi university had the same depth. So let's compare some of their findings!

1. Water

1. MoD Poll: 71% rarely get safe clean water
2. UNDP Study: 61% have stable safe drinking water, 30% have unstable safe water, 9% have unsafe water

2. Electricity

1. Mod Poll: 47% never have enough
2. UNDP Study: 15% stable, 7% rather unstable, 78% unstable, 0% none

3. Sewer System

1. MoD Poll: 70% rarely works
2. UNDP Study: 37% connected of which only 19% report frequent or always problems; ergo, 51% of those who are connected have frequent or always problems with their sewer system

4. Unemployment

1. MoD Poll: 40% of southern Iraq
2. UNDP Study: 10.8-19.5% of southern Iraq (depending on definition of unemployment)

Needless to say, the UNDP poll, even though it was conducted a year before the MoD poll, shows wildly different figures. Are we to believe that Iraqi infrastructure has gone so much backwards over the last year?

Tankevækkende.

Men alt andet vil det bedste være, hvis regeringen efterkommer SFs ønske, og spørger den britiske regering, om ikke man kan få udleveret den fulde rapport. Så kan vi bedre afgøre, om resultaterne er troværdige eller ej.

Update:

Kim har på Uriasposten også lidt om, hvordan dele af den danske medie-verden har forsøgt at spinne nyheden.

Henrik

Irak: Ekstremister bekæmper hinanden

Fra Reuters:

At least 21 Shi'ite militia fighters and two policemen were killed on Thursday when they clashed with Sunni Arab insurgents southeast of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.

Another five policemen and 12 members of the Mehdi army loyal to nationalist Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were wounded in the battle, which erupted after they tried to rescue a Mehdi Army member who was being held hostage, the official said.

"At least 21 members of the Mehdi Army were killed in the fight," a source in Sadr's office told Reuters.

Man vil måske huske al-Sadr som fundamentalisten, der to gange har forsøgt at bringe det sydlige Irak under sin kontrol med våbenmagt, og begge gange har set sin bande voldsmænd med automatvåben få lammetæv af amerikanerne. En journalist forsøgte sig dengang med at spinne den forhandlingsløsning amerikanerne foretrak (Sadr stillede siden op til valget i januar i år) som om Mahdi-militsen var for stærk for amerikanerne. Svaret kom prompte fra Brigadegeneral Mark Hertling:

"Softer stance? We took a hard line with these guys and killed over a thousand," Hertling wrote in an e-mail to the Associated Press. "Concessions? We agreed to stop hunting down what was left of the militia long enough for them to disband."

Fra kampene om den enorme kirkegård der findes i/nær Karbala husker jeg især et interview i Jyllandsposten med en maskingevær-skytte i Mahdi-militsen, der i ramme alvor mente, at han bare skulle trykke på aftrækkeren, så ville Allah sørge for at hans kugler ramte fjenden.

Med den taktik er det ikke underligt, at Mahdi-hæren også i denne omgang har fået tæv.

Henrik

Lidt om Fox

Kim på Uriasposten har et lille indlæg om Fox News, som DRs Tv-Avis har beskyldt for at være loyal over for Bush. Problemet er, at DRs ansatte som sædvanlig ikke har begreb skabt om, hvad de udtaler sig om.

Fox er institutionelt set hverken venstre- eller højre-orienteret. Stationen er udelukkende seertals-orienteret, og Bush vil altid tabe i en kamp med dem. Se for eksempel præsidentvalgkampen i 2000, hvor det var Fox der kunne fortælle om Bushs tidligere erfaringer med sprit-kørsel. Tilsvarende var Fox om muligt også endnu hårdere mod Bush i kritikken af redningsarbejdet efter orkanen Katrina, end MSM var.

Et simpelt kig på dansk fjernsyn vil heller ikke ligefrem afsløre nogen republikansk propaganda i Fox-produktioner - hvem kan finde konservative kerneværdier i Simpsons, Paradise Hotel, Fear Factor eller serien med Al Bundy?

Nyhederne er tilsvarende populistiske, og går efter hvad der end måtte giver størst seertal. I sommers fyldte historien om den amerikanske pige Natalie Holloway, der forsvandt på den caraibiske ø Aruba og siden blev fundet myrdet således i ugevis Fox´ nyheder, og stationen sendte endda en reporter til øen for at reportere live fra efterforskningen af sagen i ugevis.

Der hvor Fox faktisk har højreorienterede tilbøjeligheder grunder det faktisk i, at de dominerende stationer i den amerikanske tv-verden - ABC, CBS og NBC - i løbet af de amerikanske 68´eres "Lange March gennem Institutionerne" er blevet overtaget af venstredrejede elementer på samme måde som DR blev det i Danmark. Som resultat blev den amerikanske befolkning bombarderet med venstre-vinklede indslag årle og silde. Da Fox derfor kom til og søgte seertal var der én stor séer-skare, der ikke fik sine behov dækket: dem til højre i det politiske spektrum. Det er indretningen af de redaktionelle holdninger efter denne kerne-séer-gruppe, der giver indtrykket af, at Fox - efter europæiske og venstreorienteret demokratiske forhold - bliver anset for at være ideologisk højreorienteret og principielt pro-Bush.

Det har bare ikke så meget med virkeligheden at gøre.

For sjov kan man også tage et kig på Rupert Murdochs valgbidrag (Rupert Murdoch ejer Fox). Siden 1987 har Murdoch sammenlagt bidraget med godt 285.000 dollars til politiske kampagner. Af disse er rigtigt nok lidt under 160.000 gået til Republikanerne, men samtidig har Demokraterne fået over 80.000. Dertil kommer, at en del af de penge, demokraterne har fået, er gået direkte til de mest venstreorienterede af slagsen - Edward Kennedy, John Kerry og Dianne Feinstein.

Det er også værd at lægge mærke til, at Murdoch faktisk havde bidraget med flere penge til demokrater lige op til 11. September. Hele republikanernes overvægt er kommet til derefter.

Henrik

Flere tomme trusler fra islamiske ambassadører

Fra Jyllandsposten:

På et møde i Den Saudiarabiske Ambassade onsdag var det ventet, at ambassadørerne ville enes om at tage kontakt til de politiske ledere på Christiansborg for at få dem til at tage moralsk stilling i sagen, der har skabt stor opstandelse i muslimske miljøer.

Men Egyptens ambassadør Mona Omar Attia sagde efterfølgende, at sagen ikke længere var et direkte anliggende for ambassadørerne, men at den ville rulle videre blandt de store, muslimske verdensorganisationer.

- Man kan forestille sig, at der snart kommer en reaktion fra The Arab League, siger Mona Omar Attia.

Taget i betragtning at Arab Leagues medlemslande fem gange i streg er blevet tævet sønder og sammen af et land på størrelse med Jylland tror jeg nok, vi med sindsro kan vente på deres "reaktion". Arab League har uanset ikke været leveringsdygtigt i meget andet end frådende antisemitisme og tomme trusler siden dens grundlæggelse, så mon ikke vi bare skal sætte knappen på mute og grine i skægget over "reaktionen".

Henrik

Muslimske ambassadører truer med flere breve

Fra Jyllandsposten:

Den danske regering kan se frem til at modtage breve fra regeringerne i flere muslimske lande. ...

»Vi vil nu overlade sagen til vores regeringer, og den danske regering kan forvente at modtage breve fra nogle af landenes regeringer,« siger repræsentanten for det palæstinensiske selvstyre i København, Maie F.B. Sarraf.

Jamen dog. Flere breve? Det er da meget praktisk for herboende frimærkesamlere og genbrugspapir-grossister, men alligevel. Det er næsten synd, de bare ikke fatter, at de er fuldstændigt til grin.

Henrik

Israel skal udslettes

(Fra Jyllandsposten):

Irans præsident, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, gik i går til verbalt frontalangreb på Israel og forlangte, at den jødiske stat »slettes fra landkortet«.

I en tale til ca. 4.000 regimetro studenter i Teheran - alle klædt i sort og med grønne pandebånd - forudså den iranske præsident en bølge af palæstinensiske angreb, som vil »fjerne dette stigma«, underforstået Israel, fra Mellemøsten.

Som havde man lyttet til anbefalingerne fra Teheran, sprængte en palæstinensisk selvmordsbomber sig senere på dagen i luften på et marked i den israelske by Hadera og dræbte mindst fem israelere.

Islamisk Jihad tog skylden for terrorattentatet, som var det første inde i selve Israel, siden israelerne i september rømmede Gaza. Ifølge den islamistiske organisation var der tale om »første del« af en hævn for Israels mord på en af gruppens ledere på Vestbredden søndag.

Her skal man måske indføje, at fyren der bleb slået ihjel anslarlig for adskillige terrorangreb på civile i Israel. Tilsvarende bestod Islamisk Jihads "hævn" i at sprænge en falaffel-biks i luften.

Den ultrakonservative iranske præsident, som vandt en jordskredssejr ved valget i juni,

Her skal det så tilføjes, at "jordskreddet" bestod af massiv valgsvindel og udbredt lede ved den fundamentalistiske og fennemkorrupte præst Rafsanjani.

Formuleringen om at slette Israel fra landkortet stammer fra den islamiske revolutions leder, ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, og bruges bl.a. som slogan, når Iran fremviser nye langdistanceraketter.

»Enhver, der anerkender Israel, vil brænde i den islamiske nations raseri. Enhver, som anerkender det zionistiske regime, har accepteret den islamiske verdens overgivelse og nederlag,«

Man kan selvfølgelig også bare som Ahmadinejad lade som om den islamiske verden faktisk ikke har lidt nederlag - endda hele ti gange siden 2. Verdenskrig.

Men samtidig må man også håbe på, at han ikke kan holde sig i skindet med hensyn til at provokere. Al den tid Israel har 2-400 atomvåben til sin rådighed skal de nok kunne svare igen på det meste :-)

Henrik

Lette tab i Irak

Stort set samtlige medier har deltaget i dødekulten omkring det faktum at antallet af amerikanske soldater, der er døde i Mellemøsten nu er nået op på 2000. Samtidig glemte samme medier dog at tage et par ting i betragtning:

1. Tallet inkluderer soldater omkomne ved drukneulykker, biluheld og lignende - tab det amerikanske militær ville have lidt også i fredstid hjemme i USA. Af de 2000 er tæt på en fjerdedel omkommet i bil-uheld, drukneulykker og deslige, ikke kamphandlinger (se her, husk at skifte "all countries" ud med "U.S. only" i det lille vindue midt på siden).
2. Arbejdsulykker og sygdom har hvert år af Krigen mod Terror kostet flere soldater livet end kamphandlinger - selv hvis man tager tab i Afghanistan og Filippinerne med (tallene findes til og med 2004 - se her)
3. Modsat hvad man ellers skulle tro hvis man følger medierne, er tabene i Irak faktisk historisk lave. Sammenlign med Vietnam, hvor alene de to første år efter den amerikanske intervention kostede over 8.000 mand livet, og det hvor amerikanerne allerede fra start af kunne støtte sig til hundredtusindvis af Sydvietnamesiske soldater (se her).

Henrik

Mere arabisk våbenhvile i Palæstina

Fra BBC:

At least five people have been killed and up to 30 wounded in what police say was a suicide bomb attack in the northern Israeli town of Hadera.

The blast happened near a food stand in the town's busy market place.

Ambulances rushed to the scene to treat the wounded, as security forces sealed off the town, Israeli media reports. ...

Police said a suicide bomber walked into the market, detonating his explosives at a falafel stand near the town's central bus station at around 1600 (1400GMT).

Israeli ambulance official Chaim Rafalowski told the BBC the market would have been busy with people stocking up on supplies, on the first working day following a two-day holiday.

Eidan Akiva, who lives near the blast, told Israeli TV that body parts were strewn across the street next to his apartment building. The damage was immense, he added.

"All the stalls alongside just fell apart. The windows are all broken. It looks like a war was here," he told Channel Ten.

Ja, det hjalp sørme meget på terroren, at Israel blev presset til at trække sig tilbage fra Gaza-striben.

Henrik

Paris om 20 år - og Europa?

http://www.geocities.com/jean0989/

Henrik

Heroin-salg er "en form for Jihad"

Fra BBC:

An alleged drug lord with reported links to the Taleban has become the first Afghan citizen to be extradited to the US, prosecutors in New York say.

Baz Mohammad is accused of heading an international cartel responsible for taking more than $25m (£14m) worth of heroin into the US and other countries.

He is alleged to have said that selling heroin in the US was an act of "jihad", or holy war, against America.

Ikke noget nyt der.

Henrik

Tyrkiet: Bødestraf for at bruge "u-tyrkiske" bogstaver

I serien om skeletter i skabet hos de muslimske lande, der forleden protesterede over JP´s dragen fordel af ytringsfriheden. Denne gang fra Tyrkiet (CNN):

A Turkish court has fined 20 people for using the letters Q and W on placards at a Kurdish new year celebration, under a law that bans use of characters not in the Turkish alphabet, rights campaigners said.

The court in the southeastern city of Siirt fined each of the 20 people 100 new lira ($75.53) for holding up the placards, written in Kurdish, at the event last year. The letters Q and W do not exist in the Turkish alphabet.

Måske de kære muslimske ambassadører lige skulle rydde op derhjemme, før de blander sig i andre landes affærer?

Henrik

Muslimske ambassadører og hykleri - et eksempel

I forbindelse med Muhammed-sagen var 11 muslimske ambassadører ude med et brev til Anders Fogh om han dog ikke kunne indføre censur i Danmark, så muslimer ikke får deres følelser såret. Mascud Effendy Hutasuhut, ambassaderåd på den indonesiske ambassade i Danmark sagde det således:

»Vi håber på forståelse for muslimernes følelser omkring Muhammed. Og vi håber på en undskyldning fra Jyllands-Posten«

OK. Hvordan står det så til med muslimernes forståelse for kristne menneskers følelser i hr. Hutasuhut´s hjemland? Fra Asianews:

A group of Christian worshipers praying on a street was attacked on Sunday, October 16, in Jatimulya, East Bekasi, in West Java. The outdoor worship was the only option for these Christians since their church building had recently been forced to close.

In an e-mail message, one of the Christians said: “Christians came from three churches that were ordered closed by Jatimulya Mayor five weeks ago on the instigation of a radical Muslim group calling itself the Alliance against Apostasy.”

“The constitution of Indonesia guarantees freedom of religion, but with their buildings closed and forbidden to meet for worship in private homes, Christians have had to gather in the streets each Sunday in order to worship together,” the e-mail message lamented.

Last Sunday, Christians gathered at their usual spot on one street, but found that 300 Muslims had taken over the section. They moved elsewhere and began praying. However, they had been followed by a group of Muslim extremists who then started to insult and mock them, demanding they immediately stop their meeting. A female church leader was pushed and shoved until she fell. The Christians then decided to disperse and meet for prayer on the following day.

This incident of violence and intimidation is but the latest in a series of attacks against Indonesian Christians. Just on October 11 extremists broke into a house in western Jakarta to stop people from reciting the Rosary. Similarly, Muslim extremists have forced some 30 Protestant home churches to close.

Yderligere kommentar er vist unødvendig.

Henrik

Nobel-komitéen gør det igen: Pris til diktator-fan

Fra Dr´s tekst-tv:






















Nobel-prisen for Litteratur til en diktatur-fan med tætte forbindelser til folkemords-benægtere kommer som sidste dumhed i en lang serie. En anden nobelpris-modtager, der åbenbart ikke havde noget problem med folkemord var for eksempel serieløgneren Rigoberta Menchu, der fik Nobels Fredspris i 1992. Endelig har vi Wangari Maathai, der fik prisen i 2004, og som har sin helt egen racistiske version af virkeligheden, hvor Aids er et biologisk våben skabt af sadistiske videnskabsmænd for at udrydde den sorte race.

Henrik

Anti-kristne optøjer i Egypten

Fra DRs tekst-tv:






















Eller, for at citere fra LFG´s kommentar til samme historie: I Egypten har muslimer angrebet en kristen kirke for at protestere mod udgivelsen af en DVD, der viser muslimer der angriber en kristen kirke.

Og nej, islam og logik har ikke meget med hinanden at gøre.

Henrik

En ide til at fremme mellem-folkelig forståelse

Allerede kendt i den udenlandske presse og blogosfæren i ugevis, nu også i JP (hat tip: Filtrat):

Inspektøren for det britiske fængselsvæsen, Anne Owers, har forbudt fængselsbetjentene at bære slipsenåle med det britiske flags røde kors på hvid bund, det såkaldte St. George-kors. Det minder de muslimske indsatte om korstogene.

Lederen af Rådet for Fremme af arabisk-britisk Forståelse, Chris Doyle, hylder beslutningen og tilføjer, at det nu er tid for England at finde et andet flag og en ny skytshelgen, som »ikke associeres med vores blodige fortid og en, som vi alle kan identificere os med.«

Hvad om Araberne så, i den arabisk-britiske forståelses tjeneste, allesammen finder en ny religion, som "ikke associeres med deres blodige fortid"? De kunne allesammen konvertere til Jødedommen, for eksempel.

Henrik

FN, Syrien......og Hama

Så kom rapporten om FNs undersøgelse af hvem der slog Libanons tidligere premierminister Rafiq Hariri ihjel. Fra BBC:

The UN inquiry report into the assassination of Hariri says many leads point to the direct involvement of Syrian officials.

However, the names of Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother and brother-in-law and other top Syrians were edited out of the final report

Den oprindelige version af rapporten omtaler at seks navngivne personer besluttede at dræbe Hariri - fire fra inderkredsen om Syriens diktator Bashar Assad, og to fra syrernes marionet-regime i Libanon. Rapportens tyske forfatter Detlev Mehlis påstår, navnene blev slettet fordi kun ét vidne nævnte dem. Men hvorfor så putte det i rapporten i første omgang? Reuters har en god gennemgang af, hvad sletningen af de to navne betyder for rapporten:

Maher Assad is the brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. With his name deleted from the above section, he is not mentioned anywhere in Mehlis's report.

Asef Shawkat heads Syria's powerful Military Intelligence and is married to President Assad's only sister, Bushra. His name is mentioned once in the report's final version.

General Hassan Khalil of Syria is a retired chief of Military Intelligence. His name does not appear in the final version.

Bahjat Suleiman is a member of President Bashar's inner circle. His name is nowhere in the final version.

Major General Jamil Al-Sayyed of Lebanon served as head of General Security from 1998 until May 2005, when he resigned under heavy pressure from the Lebanese opposition after Hariri's killing. His name is peppered throughout the report as it details the plot.

Brigadier General Mustapha Hamdan is one of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's closest aides, in charge of ensuring the president's personal safety. His name also appears frequently throughout the Mehlis report.

Med andre ord slipper syrerne i den redigerede version betydeligt lettere, selv om deres lakajer stadig får skylden. Hele affæren startede med at det libanesiske parlament sidste efter år efter massivt syrisk pres ændrede den libanesiske grundlov, for at den pro-syriske præsident Lahoud kunne sidde endnu en periode. Selv i sin redigerede version fremstår den syriske kampagne for at destabilisere Libanon da en anti-syrisk opposition endelig dannede sig tydeligt (FNs rapport, via BBC):

• 7 September 2004, Economy Minister Marwan Hamadeh, Culture Minister Ghazi Aridi, Minister of Refugee Affairs Abdullah Farhat and Environment Minister Fares Boueiz, resigned from the cabinet in protest at the constitutional amendment.
  
• 9 September 2004, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri indicates to journalists that he will resign.
  
• 1 October 2004, Assassination attempt on Marwan Hamadeh, in Beirut, Lebanon.
  
• 4 October 2004, Rafik Hariri resigns as prime minister.
  
• 20 October 2004, President Lahoud accepts Hariri’s resignation and names Omar Karame to form the new government.
  
  2005
  
• 14 February 2005, Rafik Hariri and 22 other individuals are killed in a massive blast in a seafront area of central Beirut.
  
• 8 March 2005, Hezbollah organizes a one million strong "pro-Syrian" march.
  
• 14 March 2005, a Christian/Sunni-led counter demonstration demands the withdrawal of Syrian troops and the arrest of the chief of the security and intelligence services.

En lille kommentar kræves her: FN lader til at manipulere lidt her. De eneste, der talte en million til Hezbollahs demonstration var Hezbollah selv og en uidentificeret "syrisk sikkerheds-organisation". Resten af verden så kun mellem 200.000 og 400.000, hvoraf hovedparten måske ikke engang har været libanesere, men istedet Palæstinensere og Syrere (læs det hele, ikke kun det jeg citerer):

In figures, the main body of the demonstration was composed of:
1- Syrians from the Syrian working force in Lebanon. The real figures for this working force are around 1.4 million workers (in a country of 3-4 million). This population has been coerced to “demonstrate” in support of its tortures for the last forty years. Syrian authorities did not even have to take excessive measures to “convince” Syrian workers in Lebanon to join the so-called Hizbullah demonstration.

2- Syrians from Syria. Hundreds of buses left Damascus to Beyrouth on the demonstration day. And that, to the extent that, for the first time in 34 years, the celebrations of the 8th of march “corrective movement” (coup d’état of Hafez el-Assad in 1970) in Damascus itself had to be postponed from the 8th to the 9th of March. The “masses” were “away”- demonstrating in Beyrouth.

3- “Masses” came from Sidon in South Lebanon. It so happens that Sidon is the town of Rafik Hariri and people there hate the Syrian regime, whom they blame for assassinating Hiriri. In fact it was the Ain el-Heloué camp (a few kilometres outside Sidon) which came to demonstrate, in addition to all other Palestinian camps in Beyrouth and in North Lebanon. The leaders of Fateh and fundamentalists leaders in those camps had been convoked to Damascus 10 days ago to prepare the Hizbullah demonstration and, most probably, for some terroritst attacks to be perpetrated in the next few days. Such coming terroritst acts, Syria thinks, would give its military-intelligence presence a new legitimacy as a “peace-keeping force”. The official figures on Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon exceed 300 000 refugees.

Mens FN således får pustet den pro-syriske demonstration op til millionen, hopper den let hen over den anti-syriske 6 dage senere, der faktisk meget vel kan have nået den. Medierne anslog fremmødet til mellem 800.000 og en milion. Efter danske forhold svarer det til, at en million mennesker tropper op på Rådhuspladsen for at demonstrere.

Men tilbage til FNs rapport og syrernes terror-kampagne:

• 19 March 2005, a bomb explodes in Jdeideh, a northern suburb of Beirut, wounding 11 people.
• 23 March 2005, three people are killed and three others wounded in an explosion in the Kaslik shopping centre, north of Beirut.
• 26 March 2005, a suitcase bomb explodes in an industrial zone in northeast Beirut, injuring six.
• 1 April 2005, nine people are injured in an underground garage in an empty commercial and residential building in Broumana.
  􀂃 26 April 2005, the last Syrian troops leave Lebanon ending a 29 year military presence.
• 6 May 2005, a bomb explodes in Jounieh north of Beirut injuring 29 people.
• 2 June 2005, journalist Samir Kassir is killed when his car explodes in east Beirut.
• 21 June 2005, former Lebanese Communist Party leader George Hawi is killed when his car explodes close to his home in Wata Musaytbeh.
• 30 June 2005, Fouad Siniora, former finance minister under Rafik Hariri, forms the new government composed of 23 ministers.
• 12 July 2005, Defence Minister Elias Murr is wounded and two other people are killed in a car bomb attack in Beirut.
• 22 July 2005, at least three people are wounded near rue Monot when a bomb explodes in the Ashrafieh quarter.
• 22 August 2005, three persons are injured in an explosion in a garage near the Promenade Hotel in the Al-Zalqa area north of Beirut.
• 16 September 2005, one person is killed and ten others wounded by a bomb near a bank in Ashrafieh.
• 19 September 2005, one person is killed and two wounded in a small explosion at the Kuwaiti information office in Beirut.
• 25 September 2005, a car bomb injures prominent news anchor, May Chidiac, in north Beirut.

Mens jeg er i gang med Syrien kan jeg jo lige så godt illustrere hvad det socialistiske diktatur er i stand til at gøre. Jeg har tidligere nævnt at visse grupper i Mellemøsten spiller efter Hama-regler. Begrebet kommer sig af en opstand islamiske fundamentalister organiserede i den syriske by Hama i 1982 som kulmination på en serie af terror-angreb, de havde udført siden 1978. Alvoren gik først rigtigt op for Baath-socialisterne efter et mordforsøg på Syriens diktator Hafez Assad i 1980:

President Assad as he was waiting to welcome the visiting chief of state from Mali to the official visitors' palace in Damascus Assad managed to escape with only a foot injury thanks to the fact that his bodyguard smothered one of the grenades and he himself kicked the other away. His retribution was not long in coming though. At 3:00 the next morning, June27, some eighty members of Rifaat's Defense Companies were dispatched to Tadmur (Palmyra) Prison, which housed hundreds of Muslim Brothers arrested the previous year. According to Amnesty International, the soldiers were divided into groups of 10 and, once inside the prison, were ordered to kill the prisoners in their cells and dormitories. Some 600 to 1,000 prisoners are reported to have been killed. After the massacre, the bodies were removed and buried in a large common grave outside the prison." Throughout the next year, surprise searches of Hama, Aleppo, and other Muslim Brotherhood strongholds became a weekly event During these roundups curbside executions were regularly carried out against youths suspected of involvement with the Islamic underground. More than once Hamawis awoke to find a sidewalk or a central square littered with bullet-riddled bodies. Some more elderly Muslim clerics had half of their mustaches shaved off, their beards burned, or were forced to dance in the streets while wishing President Assad long life"

Kulminationen kom så med den muslimske opstand i Hama i 1982, der blev knust efter 4 ugers gadekampe af Hafez´s bror, den nuværende syriske diktators onkel Rifaat:

Virtually every building in Hama was damaged in some way. Hama's most famous archaeological site, the 1,200-year-old Kaylani family palaces on the banks of the Orontes, were ravaged. Virtually every mosque had its minaret blown down, which wasn't surprising considering that the Muslim Brothers had used them as sniper's nests. ...

Entire families were apparently rousted out of their homes and gunned down on the streets, simply because a single member was listed by Syrian intelligence as being linked to the Brotherhood. Those civilians who could, tried to escape through under ground sewers or bribe their way through the ring of steel the Syrian army had thrown up around Hama, but few were successful. ...

On February 22, the Syrian govemment broadcast a telegram of support addressed to President Assad from the Hama branch of the Baath Party. The message referred to Muslim Brotherhood fighters killing Baath Party officials and leaving their mutilated bodies in the streets. It added that security forces had taken fierce reprisals against the Brotherhood, "which stopped them breathing forever."

For the next several weeks, there was a settling of accounts between the Assad regime and Syria's fourth-largest city; many more people perished as a result. Most of the casualties in Hama apparently were registered during this phase. Syrian army engineers set about systematically dynamiting any buildings which remained standing in "Brotherhood" neighborhoods, with who-ever was inside. Ancient Hama, the marketplace, craft quarters, and mosques, which provided the social fabric for the Muslim Brotherhood to flourish, were totally obliterated. As the army mopped up the city, many of those who had survived or had not fled were brought in for interrogation in makeshift detention camps set up by the Mukhabarat intelligence service. According to the Muslim Brotherhood, something called "Solomon's Chair," which was fitted with iron spikes, was offered to any prisoner who hesitated to talk. Others had their hands welded. The torture and interrogations, according to Ya'ari, were supervised by Colonel Mohammed Nassif, an aide to Rifaat.

Just to make sure that those people who lived in the Muslim Brotherhood districts would be dispersed and forced to find new housing and new jobs at the mercy of the government, Rifaat brought in bulldozers and crushed all those buildings and neighborhoods which had been shelled beyond repair. Then he brought in steamrollers to flatten the rubble like parking lots. According to both Amnesty International and the Muslim Brotherhood, groups of prisoners suspected of anti-government sentiments were taken from detention camps, machine-gunned en masse, and then dumped into pre-dug pits that were covered with earth and left unmarked. Amnesty also quoted allegations that cyanide gas containers were brought into the city, connected by rubber pipes to the entrances of buildings believed to house insurgents, and turned on, killing everyone inside. Virtually the entire Muslim religious leadership in Hama - from sheiks to teachers to mosque caretakers - who survived the battle for the city were liquidated afterward in one fashion or another; most anti-government union leaders suffered the same fate.

Kom så lige og sig, at Amerikanerne var åh-så-onde mod Fallujah.

Henrik

Simpsons tager til Mekka

Fran ABCNews via HolyCoast.com:

After 17 seasons of entertaining U.S. audiences, "The Simpsons" can now be seen on Arab television. While U.S. foreign policy is not always a hit overseas, there is a huge audience for American popular culture.

So the Arab satellite network MBC is bringing the cartoon saga of Springfield to the heart of the Arab world. "The Simpsons" has been exported overseas and is now called "Al Shamshoon."

The new take on the cartoon classic debuted this month, just in time for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

With Omar instead of Homer, and Badr substituting for Bart, MBC hopes to win coveted young viewers. After all, 60 percent of the Arab world is 20 years old or younger.

"I think 'The Simpsons' will open new horizons for us to the future by creating a new genre of programming that will appeal to young adults in the Middle East," said Michel Costandi, MBC's director of business development.

But with a show that is so disinctly American, Arab media experts say, it's not enough to just translate the language. ...

So MBC is making some changes as the characters go from American to Arab. They will remove references to things forbidden by the Koran, such as bacon, beer and other references that might be construed as offensive.

From American Beer to Arab Soda

Homer Simpson's ubiquitous Duff beer will now be soda in the Arab version of the show.
Hot dogs will become Egyptian beef sausages, and donuts will become popular Arab cookies called "kahk." Moe's Bar has been completely written out of "Al Shamshoon."

Spørgsmålet er så, om det i det hele taget er Simpsons mere. Census in action.

Henrik

Trusler

Fra CNN:

"They should be afraid, because they will be held accountable for what happened on their watch,"...

"I'm representing the poorest and the most vulnerable people. On a spiritual level, I have that with me. I'm throwing a punch, and the fist belongs to people who can't be in the room, whose rage, whose anger, whose hurt I represent.

Osama bin Laden?

Nej da: Bono.

Henrik

Syrisk ups´er: "snigmord", ikke "selvmord"

Eftersom FN i morgen offentliggør resultaterne af sin efterforskning af mordet på den libanesiske oppositions-leder Rafiq Hariri, og eftersom alle forventer at det er de syriske efterretningstjenester der står bag, virkede det sært praktisk at den mand der var Syriens mand på stedet i Libanon i mange år for et par dage siden "begik selvmord". Få accepterer den syriske version - at det var selvmord - som sandheden, og Syriens udenrigsminister har da heller ikke selv ligefrem gjort historien mere troværdig. Fra UPI:

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa erred twice in his eulogy of Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan calling the suicide an "assassination," said an-Nahar.

The public attorney who superintended an autopsy made the same mistake during a televised news conference.

"The 'tongue lapses' buttressed a worldwide conviction that Gen. Kanaan was 'willfully eliminated' to cover up a high-level involvement of the Assad regime in Lebanon's ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination, refuting the official Syrian claim that the 63-year-old general had committed suicide," reported Beirut's an-Nahar newspaper, on its Internet Web site

Sharaa held the Lebanese media and leakages by the U.N. commission responsible for Kanaan's 'assassination' in a televised statement at his funeral on Thursday. He did not correct the first 'slip of the tongue.' Later in the statement Sharaa again called Kanaan's death an 'assassination' with an instant correction of 'pardon, suicide.'

Chief public attorney Muhammad al-Louji told a televised news conference in Damascus Thursday that Kanaan shot himself with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. Al-Louji said an examination of the body and interviews with witnesses showed "Kanaan placed the tip of the revolver in his mouth and fired it."

"The act of killing, pardon, assassination, occurred at his office in the Interior Ministry at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday. He had left 45 minutes earlier, got into his car and drove home. He spent a little time there before returning to the office," al-Louji said

Hvem tror de selv, de narrer? :-)

Henrik

Endnu en "Apartheid-mur" på muslimsk land

.....og endnu engang er der ingen, der synes der er noget galt med det. Det er jo kun ondt, når jøder prøber at beskytte sig selv mod at blive massakreret. Fra BBC:

Egypt has started to build a security fence around the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to try to stop attacks on the town, security officials say.

The officials said the fence would stretch for 20km (12 miles) and force vehicles wanting to enter the town to pass through one of four checkpoints. ...

Authorities have finished 2km (1.2 miles) of the 1.5m-high fence on the northern side of the resort and a smaller section on the southern side, Reuters news agency quoted an official as saying.

A town resident told Reuters that one portion would cut off a nearby Bedouin settlement where many workers live.

A security official cited by AFP news agency said the fence was "not meant to stop any particular group of people but prevent terrorist attacks".

Held og lykke til Egypterne - de har jo åbenbart lært af jødernes erfaringer i Israel.

Henrik

Ballade om New Zealands nye udenrigsminister

New Zealand afholdt for nyligt parlamentsvalg, der førte til dannelsen af en koalitionsregering, blandt andet med deltagelse af New Zealand First-partiet og dets formand Winston Peters, der blev udenrigsminister i den nye regering. Det har ført et sandt ramaskrig med sig:

Opposition National Party leader Don Brash said the decision to give the job to Mr Peters would do "huge damage for our international reputation".

The Australian newspaper described the appointment as a "bad joke".

Sydney's Daily Telegraph described Mr Peters as a "diplomatic nightmare", and other commentators said that by choosing Mr Peters as the foreign affairs minister, New Zealand was sending a negative message to its Asian neighbours.

Men hvad har hr. Peters så sagt? Jo da:

Mr Peters has made many outspoken remarks against immigration, particularly from Asia.
Early in this year's election campaign, he warned against the "militant underbelly" of the small Muslim community in New Zealand.

In 2002 he said the country was at risk because of an influx "of people whose views are formed by alien cultures and rigid religious practices".

Taget de to terrorangreb foretaget af muslimske terrorister i nabolaget (Bali) i betragtning, og de over to hundrede mennesker der blev myrdet og hundredvis flere, der blev lemlæstet, undrer man sig over, hvad f..... problemet er.

Henrik

"kulturelle tidsbomber" - "seriemæssige gruppevoldtægter er næsten uundgåelige"

Sydney Morning Herald via Faithfreedom.org:

A violent gang rapist should have been given a lesser sentence partly because he was a "cultural time bomb" whose attacks were inevitable, as he had emigrated from a country with traditional views of women, his barrister has argued.

MSK, who, with his three Pakistani brothers, raped several girls at their Ashfield family home over six months in 2002, was affected by "cultural conditioning … in the context of intoxification", Stephen Odgers, SC, told the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.

MSK, 26, MAK, 25 and MMK, 19, are appealing against the severity of their sentences after they were found guilty of nine counts of aggravated sexual assault in company - a crime carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment - against two girls, aged 16 and 17, in July 2002.
MSK and MMK were jailed for 22 years, with a non-parole period of 16½ years, and 13 years, respectively, and MAK for 16 years (12 years non-parole).

Court orders prevent them being named. They are yet to be sentenced for other rapes.
Mr Odgers said "new evidence" showed MSK had a "mental disorder" at the time of the rapes and had stopped taking his medication - supplied by his father, a general practitioner.
He also said Justice Brian Sully had made a "clear error" in sentencing them to an extra six years on two counts, rather than one - referring to an act in which MMK withdrew his penis and took off the condom and then continued to rape one of the girls.

"It was the same victim, it occurred in the same location, there was no relevant difference in the nature of the act. The time gap between the offences was minimal," he said. Mr Odgers said a forensic psychologist, David Greenberg, had diagnosed MSK with "atypical compulsive obsessive disorder".

MSK said: "When I stopped taking medication, I never had any idea in my mind that I would be committing these problems. If anything happened, it would happen accidentally, but I was commanded to do these things."

After a special hearing, a judge concluded earlier this year that MSK was not mentally ill - the same conclusion reached by pre-sentence psychology reports in 2003.

Mr Odgers said the new evidence showed that he had a disease, which, combined with alcohol and the cultural conditioning of "a society with very traditional views of women", was "clearly a factor in the commissioning of these offences".

"The applicant was a cultural time bomb," Mr Odgers said. "It was almost inevitable that something like this would happen. His culpability is lessened because of that combination."


Vi lader den lige stå lidt i al sin afskyelige ulækkerhed.






Professor Greenberg's report concluded the disorder did not lead MSK to commit the rapes. He also said he may be malingering.

The father, who said at the trials that he was with his sons on the night of the rapes, told the court he had diagnosed MSK with schizophrenia.

"He told me … Satan come to him and tell him different things. He told me that sometimes even the green grass whisper to him."

He refused to place his hand on the Koran when sworn in because he said he had not washed.

A spokesman for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, said he was unable to confirm whether the father would be charged with perjury over evidence he gave at the trials.

Et ord: kulturberigelse.

Tre ord: fy for satan.

Henrik

Samtale med Præsident Bush

En af de bedste ting, blogosfærens fremkomst har ført med sig, er en decideret demokratisering af medie-billedet. Det er ikke længere kun journalister, der har monopol på nyhedsdækningen, de folk der berettes om kan nu også komme selvstændigt til orde. Nogle gange er resultatet ikke til mediernes fordel. Fra They Call Us, "Doc":

















Yesterday, I (bottom right corner in the picture) was chosen to be among a small group of soldiers assigned to the 42ID's Task Force Liberty that would speak to President Bush, our Commander-in-Chief. The interview went well, but I would like to respond to what most of the mass-media has dubbed as, "A Staged Event."
First of all, we were told that we would be speaking with the President of the United States, our Commander-in-Chief, President Bush, so I believe that it would have been totally irresponsible for us NOT to prepare some ideas, facts or comments that we wanted to share with the President.
We were given an idea as to what topics he may discuss with us, but it's the President of the United States; He will choose which way his conversation with us may go.
We practiced passing the microphone around to one another, so we wouldn't choke someone on live TV. We had an idea as to who we thought should answer what types of questions, unless President Bush called on one of us specifically.

President Bush told us, during his closing, that the American people were behind us. I know that we are fighting here, not only to preserve our own freedoms, but to establish those same freedoms for the people of Iraq. It makes my stomach ache to think that we are helping to preserve free speech in the US, while the media uses that freedom to try to RIP DOWN the President and our morale, as US Soldiers. They seem to be enjoying the fact that they are tearing the country apart. Worthless!
The question I was most asked while I was home on leave in June was, "So...What's REALLY going on over there?" Does that not tell you something?! Who has confidence in the media to tell the WHOLE STORY? It's like they WANT this to turn into another Vietnam. I hate to break it to them, but it's not.

Tomorrow morning, the Iraqi people will vote on their constitution. The success of our mission or the mission of the Iraqi security forces is not defined by the outcome of that vote. If the people of Iraq vote this constitution down, that only means that the FREE, DEMOCRATIC PROCESS is at work in Iraq. They are learning to voice their opinions in the polling stations, not through violence. If it is voted down, they will have the chance to draft an even better version; One that may better serve the people of Iraq. This is up to them. It is history in the making and I will not let the media or anyone else (who has not spent more than two weeks here) tell me otherwise. I have been here for almost a year. I have seen the progress made in so many ways from January's elections to this referendum. Don't tell me what the Iraqi people can or can't do. They will tell you with their VOTES!

If you would like to see our interview with President Bush, you may get it HERE.

Vel brølt.

Henrik

Hvad er der galt med Tyrkerne?

Fra Coming Anarchy:

First it was a bestseller about the United States attacking Turkey, then Mein Kampf was number 1 (Look at Curzon’s picture, what book is right above Mein Kampf?). Now this: Turks embrace novelist’s war on EU

ISTANBUL The year is 2010 and the European Union has rejected Turkey. Fascist governments have come to power in Germany, Austria and France and are inciting violence against resident Turks and Muslims. A vengeful Turkey joins forces with Russia and declares war against the EU. Turkish commandos besiege Berlin, obliterate Europe and take control of the Continent.

Some critics will be quick to dismiss “The Third World War,” a new futuristic novel by a 30-year-old Turkish writer, Burak Turna, as the wild imaginings of a conspiracy theorist and literary shock jock – and in many ways it is.

But the novel, which dominates bookstore display windows in Istanbul, has sold more than 130,000 copies in just two months and is rising on best-seller lists across the country. As Turkey embarks on 10 years of tortuous talks to join the EU, Turkish observers say the novel’s popularity reflects the growing wariness of Turks about a Europe that is increasingly wary of them.

Men lad os da endelig åbne dørene for 70 millioner muslimer, der gør Mein Kampf til en bestseller.

Henrik

Ris til egen røv - På vej mod forbud mod Koranen i Storbritannien

En ny lov, der blandt andet vil forbyde udtalelser, der er "fornærmende" og "sandsynligvist vil føre til religiøs vold" og truer med op til syv års fængsel har skabt en del røre i Storbritannien. Hidtil har det primært været de lokale muslimske grupper, der har været for loven, mens talefriheds-forkæmpere har været imod. Nu er muslimerne imidlertid også ved at blive betænkelige, fordi de har fundet ud af, at de selv og deres påstået hellige bog også vil kunne straffes efter loven (CNS news):

Muslims have not been happy, however, at the suggestion that their own religious texts may fall foul of the bill for which they have been pressing for so long.

During an earlier parliamentary debate, last June, Conservative lawmaker Boris Johnson said that "if this bill makes any sense at all, it must mean banning the reading -- in public or private -- of a great many passages of the Koran itself."

He then read aloud several passages from the Koran which deal with the treatment of non-Muslims.Johnson said he acknowledged that the Koran was "not unique" in its hostility to other faiths, but found it ironic that the law was designed to combat "Islamophobia."

His comments prompted a delegation of concerned Muslim figures to visit the member of government responsible for the legislation, Home Office minister Paul Goggins, and urged him to "totally exempt" Islamic texts from the remit of the bill.

En kristen lobby-gruppe har siden bekendtgjort, at hvis loven bliver vedtaget, vil den politi-anmelde alle boghandler der sælger koraner og hadith. Som de siger:

If they aren't hate speech, nothing is."

Muslimerne ville have loven, men havde nok ikke forventet denne udvikling.

Rist til egen røv.

Henrik

Bush´s popularitet - og syv andre præsidenters

Der er - også i den danske presse (eks Politiken) - blevet gjort meget ud af, at diverse meningsmålinger giver Bush hans laveste popularitet endnu i hans to præsidentperioder. Det er så hvad det er, men nu har Powerline Blog set på, om tilslutningen faktisk er så historisk lav som den bliver fremstillet som:

But are Bush's numbers really that bad? His current Real Clear Politics average stands at 41.7% approval. That is at or about the low point in nearly five years in office. How does it compare to other presidents' lowest poll ratings? Actually, it's not bad. Here are the low approval ratings for the last seven presidents:

*Johnson: 35%
*Nixon: 24%
*Ford: 37%
*Carter: 28%
*Reagan: 35%
*Bush I: 29%
*Clinton: 37%

Yes, that's right: Every president since 1963 has had approval ratings, at one time or another during his administration, at least five points lower than Bush's current nadir.

Henrik

Naturkatastrofer og terrorisme

Orkanen Katrina ramte for godt halvanden måned siden USA, og kostede lidt over tusinde amerikanere livet. Dengang kunne de islamiske fundamentalister ikke lade være med at hovere:

Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the U.S. Gulf coast this week, has incited a storm of enthusiasm among Islamist bloggers who claim the destruction was sent by God to torment the American empire. "Katrina, a soldier sent by God to fight on our side ... the soldier Katrina joins us to fight against America," said one Islamist Web site.

Another said: "Allahu akbar [God is greatest]. Soldiers of God, Hurricane Katrina demolishes America. Don't think that God doesn't care about the injustices of tyrants."

Fair nok, det er Allah der sender naturkatastrofer. Så kom jeg til at se BBCs liste over alvorlige jordskælv. Det, der slog mig, var at hvis man ser bort fra et enkelt jordskælv i italien, der kun er taget med fordi en hel skoleklasse omkom, så er hvert evigt eneste af dem, der har fundet sted siden 11. September 2001 er gået ud over muslimske lande. Se selv:

28 March 2005:
About 1,300 people are killed in an 8.7 magnitude quake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Nias, west of Sumatra.

22 February 2005:
Hundreds die in a 6.4 magnitude quake centred in a remote area near Zarand in Iran's Kerman province.

26 December 2004:
Hundreds of thousands are killed across Asia when an earthquake measuring 8.9 triggers sea surges that spread across the region.

24 February 2004:
At least 500 people die in an earthquake which strikes towns on Morocco's Mediterranean coast.

26 December 2003:
More than 26,000 people are killed when an earthquake destroys the historic city of Bam in southern Iran.

21 May 2003:
Algeria suffers its worst earthquake in more than two decades. More than 2,000 people die and more than 8,000 are injured in a quake felt across the sea in Spain.

1 May 2003:
More than 160 people are killed, including 83 children in a collapsed dormitory, in south-eastern Turkey.

24 February 2003:
More than 260 people die and almost 10,000 homes are destroyed in Xinjiang region, in western China.

31 October 2002:
Italy is traumatised by the loss of an entire class of children, killed in the southern village of San Giuliano di Puglia when their school building collapses on them.

Hvad angår Tsunamien sidste år i December, var langt hovedparten af ofrene i Aceh-provinsen i Indonesien, hvor en fundamentalistisk islamist oprørsbevægelse har kæmpet for selvstændighed siden 1970erne. Tilsvarende var hovedparten af ofrene i Sri Lanka i de vestlige provinser, hvor hovedparten af Sri Lankas muslimske indbyggere bor.

Det sidste store jordskælv var så i Pakistan, hvor op mod 40.000 mennesker menes at være omkommet. Naturnødvendigt er jordskælvet også gået ud over terroristerne, der havde deres baser netop i det område, der er værst ramt (via JihadWatch):

From The Statesman:

For all the years of jihad in Kashmir, the capital of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, was the hub of terrorist activity. It had a number of terrorist training camps, far beyond the reach of Indian security agencies. But they have been badly hit by nature.

The fury unleashed by the killer quake, at least, has achieved one thing that both Pakistan and Indian administrations failed to do — that is to clamp down on terror camps and in particular, the terror infrastructure.

The killer quake has crippled militant training camps in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and the North-west frontier province of Pakistan.

As a result of which the Jihad Council, an umbrella organisation of several militant outfits, has also suspended its activities.

This report contradicts the Jihad Council's directive.

A local Kashmiri newspaper has reported that scores of activists from an Islamic charity linked to a banned Pakistani militant organisation died in the devastating earthquake. Even, the militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiyaba’s offshoot, the Jamat-ud-Dawa’s spokesman said that the charity’s mosques, hospitals, schools and Islamic seminaries were obliterated.

“We have lost many of our members. Several have died, many others are buried under the rubble,” he said.

The Lashkar-e-Taiyaba runs a hospital and a madrasa near Muzaffarabad, which have borne the brunt of the quake’s fury. Twenty kilometres from Muzaffarabad, the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba had three training camps — Kura, Aksa and Abdullah bin Masood. This was the seat of the Lashkar commander, Zaki ur Rehman.

The militant organisation had also set up three new camps in the hills in the north-west of Manshera, called Umar, Abu Bakr and Umar Bin Auf. Each camp had more than 100 militants, many of whom have been badly reportedly affected by the quake that transcended all artificial boundaries while unleashing its own variant of terror. Even Balakot near Muzaffarabad that had the dubious distinction of being the epicentre of cross-border terrorism and was regarded as the nerve-centre of terror by counter-terrorism experts, has also been hit.

Hvis naturkatastroferne som jihadierne siger er Allahs redskaber til at straffe tyranner, hvornår mon terroristerne så selv fatter budskabet?

Henrik