I chose the above picture as a reminder of what a nuclear bomb can do. That was a young boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, who was incinerated by "Little Boy" at Hiroshima.

I think it's highly irresponsible for various pundits, mostly on the right, but some on the left, to suggest that we must respond to North Korea's saber rattling with a military attack. It's irresponsible because now that Kim Jong-il has a nuclear arsenal (assuming the tests weren't faked) we can certainly expect that he will use it if attacked.

Two things are clear to me: We must use every effort to avoid war with North Korea, while at the same time we must use whatever means necessary to disarm Kim Jong-il. The little boy in the picture is the reason I believe this.

While I think diplomacy is usually a complete boondoggle, there are options that can be and should be employed before we go charging in with guns blazing where a madman controls nuclear weapons.

The North Korean situation is similar to the Iranian one, but not identical. And as you know, I don't support military action in Iran, yet. Regime change without an invasion is the least ugly of all the options in both theaters. It's probably an easier task against the Iranians, but in neither case do I see any concrete signs that the Bush Administration is doing anything to encourage internal opposition movements. As I've said before, I think that's a big mistake.

In regards to North Korea, it seems to me that we have an advantage that is not available to us against Iran. World opinion, and especially regional opinion, seems pretty united against North Korea. I think the reason China and Russia are willing to play along against Kim Jong-il is that the balance of power equation they are employing in Central Asia does not apply to the Korean Peninsula.

In other words, China and Russia have a strong interest in promoting Iran as a rival to U.S. power in the Middle East. It's the latest incarnation of the "Great Game." But the Asian powers have now realized that promoting North Korea as a balance to American Power in the Far East is a fool's game.

The goal of balance of power politics is to maintain regional stability, and a nuclear armed DPRK upsets the status quo — not a good thing for China and Russia. They know that if Japan wanted to, they could easily build their own nuclear arsenal, and each warhead would probably fit in the palm of your hand, work perfectly every time, and get great gas mileage to boot.

So if China and Russia can be persuaded to go along with a strong sanctions regime, combined with a "quarantine" of North Korea, I think that would be a great start. They might be willing to do so.

The next few months will be a major test for Condoleezza Rice. I think her tenure as Secretary of State has been pretty lackluster, but I'm much more impressed with John Bolton. If the State Department can get its act together, maybe they can forge an alliance among the regional powers. I'd like to see Australia join in too. I'm hopeful that a united front could successfully change North Korea's behavior.

Normally, I'm not a fan of sanctions. But this might be one of those rare situations where sanctions have some effect, mainly because of the unanimity of world opinion against North Korea. It reminds me of South Africa. Sanctions arguably helped end apartheid, and while that analogy only goes so far, it is interesting to note that South Africa is the only country to have developed nuclear weapons and then given them up voluntarily.

I favor an internal revolution as the best way to solve the Iranian crisis, but I don't see that idea working in North Korea. I have not heard of any opposition groups in that closed society. I think Kim Jong-il's regime is so repressive that they'd make Tian'anmen Square look like a company picnic.

I believe the best way to defuse the situation is to get China to use its influence against Kim Jong-il himself. China is the only party that can apply pressure against the dictator to get him to step down. We'll probably have to live with a nuclear armed North Korea, but if Kim Jong-il can be replaced with a moderate who won't threaten the whole region, everybody will be able to breathe a lot easier.

The North Korean dictator's latest flagrant defiance of the Security Council should offer enough cover for the Chinese to make Kim Jong-il an offer he can't refuse. China can offer Kim asylum, and they have the power to influence the selection of his successor. North Korea can then remain communist, but perhaps reform themselves along the lines of modern China. Sanctions might even eventually be lifted. Getting rid of Kim Jong-il is the key, and as I see it, China is our best hope to accomplish that end.

More: Fans of Kevin Kim know that he teaches something or other in South Korea (English I think). Here's his inimitable commentary on the scuttlebutt over there.

One student surprised me with her take on Kim Jong Il. "I sort of liked him until today," she said, "But now I hate him." I kept a poker face, but my guts were writhing and my testicles kept popping in and out of my body like turtle heads. My asshole started shrieking ultrasonically; little edible dogs screamed in response and then exploded outside our building (NB: I've decided to name any future canine pet "Yummy"). Liked Kim Jong Il?

Posted by: annika at 06:18 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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President Bush vows to pursue more diplomacy.

In related news, Annika takes two aspirin.

Developing.

Update: As always, I recommend you check out The Princess.

Back in 1994, we made a deal with their devil to allow them to seek out "enrichment" and nuclear technology--even to assist them in building reactors--so long as they made the Scouts Honor promise to use it for good and not for evil. We agreed to lift the sanctions that the government said was "harming" their population beyond repair, to the point where children and families were starving in the streets. We assumed that they would collapse as a government long before this moment, when a bomb equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT explodes underground. We gave them plenty of money, plenty of resources, engaged in talks with them as though they were a legitimate nation, like Germany or England, and all the while, they understood our motivations and secured themselves agains that. We were the stupid ones; they wouldn't let their regime fail, and they would certainly not allow our money to go to the projects we had designated. Instead, the international community, lifted the sanctions on their end, poured money into a nuclear program, and the results? A nuclear bomb, and a starving people. One step ahead for them, one giant step back, for us.

Many are suggesting this emerging situation reminds people of President Bush's strength, or at least will increase his approval numbers. I suppose this is because his numbers go up when we get a reminder that Radical Islamists are still out there and want to kill us. I'm not so sure that's the case here--what this situation actually reminds me of is the failure of the Bush administration to properly deal with North Korea. Yes, the Norks established their nuclear program under Clinton . . . but President Bush has now had six years to deal with it, and not[h]ing has been accomplished.

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Any treatment of the Mark Foley story must include certain disclaimers, so let's get those out of the way first.

1. Foley's conduct with the pages was despicable, inexcusable, inappropriate, sickening, and in my opinion may turn out to be worse than has been alleged so far.

2. I'm glad he is gone, good riddance.

3. If Dennis Hastert or other members of the House Republican leadership knew about the masturbatory internet chats (as opposed to the e-mails sent to a different page, which they did know about), then Hastert is no better than Cardinal Mahoney and needs to be booted out.*

An excellent summary of the story as of last Sunday can be found at American Thinker.

What do we know so far?

In the Fall of 2005, Speaker Hastert's office was first notified of "overly friendly" emails sent by Foley to a certain page (not the one from the masturbatory chats). Hastert's office was not shown the original emails.

Now, since Hastert is not the "boss" of the House of Representatives (he's barely the boss of the House Republicans) he appropriately handed off the issue to the Clerk of the House.

The House Clerk is kind of a quasi-operations officer for the whole House, and is elected by the whole House.

The Clerk asked to see the "overly friendly" e-mails in question and was told that the parents didn't want to reveal them for privacy reasons. The issue was resolved by the Clerk's office telling Foley to stop all contact with the page.

As far as I know, nobody is claiming that Hastert ever knew of the masturbatory chats before they were disclosed last week. All he knew about was the "overly friendly" e-mails, and he didn't even know what was in them.

Now, we can have a discussion about whether Hastert's office, or the Clerk should have been more vigourous in demanding to see what was in the e-mails. But even if they had seen the e-mails, what should they have done?

Look at the e-mails in question, and ask yourself why they are disturbing. I think they are, but I have the benefit of knowing about the masturbatory chats, which provide a hell of a lot of context.

In the first e-mail, Foley asks, "how old are you now?" In the second, he comments that another page is "in really great shape." In the third, Foley asks the page what he wants for his birthday. In the fourth e-mail, Foley says, "send me a pic of you as well."

In the law of defamation, there is a concept called "defamation per quod," which is used to describe a statement that is not defamatory in and of itself, but can be defamatory if one takes into account facts that are extrinsic to the statment itself.

You might say that Foley's e-mails contain statements that are "pederastic per quod." In other words, the statements themselves are not creepy unless one takes into account a fact that is extrinsic to the statements: the fact that Mark Foley is gay.

Alarm bells could not go off in anyone's mind upon reading those e-mails unless one takes into account the sexual orientation of the author. In other words, Hastert's critics are implicitly saying that Hastert should have made two assumptions about Mark Foley in general and the e-mails in particular (which he didn't even see).

1. That Mark Foley is gay, and

2. All gays want to have sex with young boys.

Add to that the fact that Foley was not officially out of the closet until this week. There were rumors, certainly, but Foley had always denied them. If Hastert had "outed" Foley on the basis of those four e-mails alone, Hastert would have been pilloried by the same people now calling for his head.

[Cross-posted at The Cotillion]
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* As Mahoney should have been, long ago.

Posted by: annika at 05:59 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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Check out this report from tonight's Nightline. It's pretty disturbing. Here's the transcript, in case you can't view the video.

In a nutshell, the video was taken by a Halliburton contractor named Preston Wheeler last September with his digital camera. He was driving truck five in a convoy that got lost near Balad in the Sunni Triangle.

The video shows teenagers throwing rocks at the convoy as the trucks headed down a dead end road. When the convoy had to turn back, the enemy was waiting for them. A bullet hole suddenly appears in Wheeler's windshield. A roadside bomb explodes, a truck driver is killed and his truck overturns. Wheeler's truck is disabled, and his Humvee escort continues driving.

Small arms fire is heard. Wheeler, now alone, is eventually hit by a couple of rounds as he hides under the dashboard. Inexplicably, he is unarmed. He also witnesses another truck driver taken out of his truck and shot dead by the enemy.

The Nightline report also shows predator footage of another Halliburton driver's body being desecrated by the enemy.

After 45 minutes, helicopters arrive and the cowardly insurgents scurry off, no doubt reverting to innocent civilian status.

I don't understand why the civilian drivers were not armed. I don't understand why that village was not carpet bombed immediately afterwards. It's maddening.

Posted by: annika at 12:19 AM | Comments (44) | Add Comment
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Happy eighth birthday Google! Thanks to you, the internet has made a great leap forward. Congratulations, comrades!

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Fans of photoshopped news photography might want to check out this one, which won a Pullitzer Prize, which I suppose is a lot like Yasser Arafat winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The photographer (and I assume, the digital manipulator) was none other than terrorist associate and propagandist Bilal Hussein, now in the custody of American forces.

A commenter to The Jawa Report broke this story, so check out Howie's post for more details. The dude "sitting on air" is the clincher.

Posted by: annika at 06:15 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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[Maybe it's like Oktoberfest, which is really in September.]

So now a tiny French newspaper called, get this, l'Est Républicain is reporting that Osama bin Laden is dead.

I knew Karl Rove was good, but damn.

Update: Check Jawa for some really good news.

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Yesterday my post was so pessimistic, I thought I'd lighten things up a bit today — sort of.

Two years ago, President Bush was criticized for saying that we can't win the Global War On Terror:

I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world.

This isn't the kind of war that either side can "win" in any conventional sense. Our enemies can't destroy us militarily, because we're far too strong. We can't destroy them militarily, because they're too disbursed and decentralized. So we'll be taking potshots at one another for a long time to come. What's the end game? I don't know. How will a permanent state of war affect American politics, our collective psyche and our liberty? I don't know. It's a frustrating and frightening thing.

Matt, of all people, should know as a boxing fan that a lot of times the winner of a bout is decided by who makes the first mistake. He's right in saying that al Qaeda can't destroy us because "we're far too strong." Therefore, no mistake on our part can end the conflict.*

But if al Qaeda, and the radical Islamist movement it has spawned makes a mistake, we can and will crush them in such a way as to end the war. What is the particular mistake that will cause our enemies to lose? I'm getting to that.

As the situation stands now, al Qaeda et al. have the initiative and the upper hand in the GWOT. As it stands now, we cannot deal them a death blow. That's because in the most basic sense, all warfare is about control of geographic areas.† The great strength of the terrorist is that there is no geographic area which we can push him off of. That's what Matt meant when he wrote that the enemy is "too disbursed and decentralized."

President Bush's big contribution to the theory of warfare is the "Bush Doctrine," which in part addresses the terrorist's strength: their lack of geographical origin. On September 11, 2001, he said that the United States, when hunting down the terrorists, "will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." Nine days later, in his greatest speech, the President restated that doctrine in more detail:

This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

It was a brilliant and necessary idea, but unfortunately it has not been entirely successful in practice. Geopolitical considerations have blunted the doctine's effect, as I think the war planners probably anticipated. We've seen the doctrine work beautifully in Libya, but in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for instance, there have been mixed results. We had to make a difficult compromise with those countries because an imperfect alliance with their governments is still of great value to our interests. As a result, we have to accept that, for the time being, there will be some laxity in their efforts to control the extremism within their own borders. We can't fight everyone all at once, and especially not if Pakistan and the Saudis assure us that they are on our side.

The Bush Doctrine alone cannot win this war. So what is the mistake that the Islamists dare not make? What is the mistake that will enable us to win? It is the very thing that the enemy hopes to gain: a pan-Islamic caliphate.

Think back to the 1930's. That was a time when the democratic world looked at the growing threat of fascism and was unable to do anything to stop it. I would argue that appeasement and half-hearted reaction was inevitable then, just as it seems inevitable now. The world simply wasn't in a place where strong and united action was possible. Democracies have many strengths, but swift action is not one of them. In the 1930's there was still a system of alliances that finally mandated a response to Hitler, but the response came almost too late.

The Allies responded to Hitler only after he started taking territory by force. Now fast forward a few years. We responded to the Japanese after they started advancing across the Pacific. We responded to the North Koreans when they invaded the South. Same thing in Vietnam. Same thing when Saddam invaded Kuwait. When territory is invaded by an expansionist enemy, we never seem to have any trouble responding appropriately.

What would happen if Osama bin Laden got what he wanted — the restoration of Islamic territories to a fundamentalist theocracy under Sharia law? My thesis is this: If the Islamic fundamentalist movement were to become attached to a state, and that state were to adopt expansionist ambitions, the Western World would and could oppose them successfully.

We know that one goal of Islamic fundamentalism is to recapture territory lost to the infidel, or lost to secularist governments such as Egypt and Turkey. That is their end game. Their fatal mistake would be to actually start achieving those goals. Once the terrorists start to add nations to their idealized pan-Islamic caliphate, they will become a concrete threat that the world can unite against. Instead of being an ephemeral enemy, unconnected with any state and therefore immune from retaliation, they would suddenly become constrained by the same realities of warfare that have prevailed for centuries — and at which we excel.

The bad news is that my thesis presupposes a long period of very bad setbacks for our side. But I don't see any other way around it. The West has proven that it does not yet have the will to unite against its enemy, and even if it did, fighting insurgents and terrorists is like fighting ghosts. You can bomb a nation into submission, but I think we all know by now, it's pretty hard to bomb suicide bombers into submission. Just ask the Israelis. They've always been able to beat any nation-state with one hand tied behind their back. But they just lost their very first war, against a bunch of terrorists who were disavowed by any government.

The really bad news is that, in my view, the timeline for this caliphate solution to come about is on the order of ten to twenty years. By that time, Iran will have nuclear weapons. I think we all know that it's inevitable. So when Iranian troops spearhead the invasion of Greece, or Spain, or wherever, and the West finally gets up the gumption to oppose them, we will be firing missiles at each other.

I know this post sounds like I've been reading too many Harry Turtledove books, but if you think about it, you'll see I'm right. Countries win wars by finding a way around the enemy's defenses. Islamic terrorists hide within "neutral" states and behind innocent civilians, that is their main defense. But they lose that defense once they attach themselves to a piece of land and call themselves a nation. Therefore the seeds of their own destruction lay inside their own express goals.

I told you this would be a more optimistic post.
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* I can hear the nay-sayers now. "But we're already making mistakes that will cost us the war, by being too soft on the enemy, on homeland security, on our borders, etc." I don't disagree that we're being too soft. But what is the probable result of our softness? A major attack? And the result of a major attack will be that our softness is replaced by a hardness in proportion to how bad the attack is. Bottom line is that no terrorist attack, however horrendous, will cause the United States to become part of the pan-Islamic caliphate. That is a danger that exists solely in Europe, due to their lack of moral character, their lax immigration policies, their societal decision not to reproduce, and their sixty year reliance on the United States' security umbrella, which caused them to forget how to defend themselves. But I do not see that fate happening to us. As a people we are too stiff necked and independent. And we love our Constitution too much to replace it with the Koran. (Sure we got some nutty ideas in this country. But when the Swedes are considering a tax on all men to pay for domestic violence treatment — and the idea is taken seriously — all I can say is we have a long way to go in the U.S. before we reach the European level of self-destructive insanity.)

† I know von Clausewitz said, "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means," but I'm talking in the micro sense. There's a guy standing on a piece of land that I want to stand on. He's got a gun and I've got a gun. War is how I use my gun to get him to let me stand on that piece of land. He either dies, runs away, or steps aside.

Posted by: annika at 03:51 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Perhaps many of you have seen the Abu Dawood interview transcript that's been making the rounds. If not, here it is.

It's pretty scary stuff. Dawood is supposedly some sort of al Qaeda bigwig, and he says American moslems should leave the country immediately. He also says that al Qaeda has already smuggled "deadly materials" across the Mexican border and that they can attack anytime.

I'm not convinced of this transcript's authenticity. It's supposed to have been done in person, but it reads like a written interview with short questions and long prepared answers.

Assuming arguendo that the transcript is legitimate, a couple of things come to mind. If the "deadly materials" were smuggled across the Mexican border, that suggests to me that a likely target is the West Coast, probably Los Angeles. That scares me a lot because my family lives there. I don't see the terrorists attacking anything except on the coasts. They can blend in easier in populated blue state areas than they can in say, Texas. Transporting the "material" from Tijuana to L.A. is a lot less risky than going from Nuevo Laredo to D.C. And if they want to top 9/11, they'll need to attack a major city that holds some symbolic value.

Secondly, if a big attack occurs, the Democrats won't look quite so dumb for having insisted that Iraq was a distraction and we should have been concentrating on finding Bin Laden. Just being honest here.

Thirdly, I have heard more than once from people I know, that if a major attack occurs, it will be open season on anyone with linen on their head. I think we're in for some serious backlash if there's another attack, as the interviewer acknowledes in the transcript.

I don't know about you, but I've noticed a vague sense of anger and dread rising in this country since about mid summer. I don't see it in my personal day-to-day life, but I do hear it on the radio, on tv and in blogs. I think left and right have been banging away at each other for five years and nobody's winning the debate. We're all sick of arguing and we're just waiting for some event to happen that will prove one side or the other right.

The string of foiled attacks this summer added to the feeling I'm talking about. So did the Lebanon crisis. And the Iran stalemate. And Chavez yesterday. The impending election is also a factor, though I don't think the results will change the national mood, no matter who wins. If there is a big attack on our soil before the year is out, I really think things will get ugly — much uglier than I can even imagine.

Sure, I know that there are lots of dedicated folks out there trying to detect and stop anything bad from happening. And they've been successful so far. But I also worry because it seems like it would be so easy for the terrorists to do something if they really tried. Anytime we catch somebody it seems like we got lucky. But just using my own imagination, I can think of dozens of ways they could carry out an attack without us ever catching them.

So I guess the message is pray, have an emergency kit ready, and don't fly during Ramadan (which starts two days from now).

Update: Peggy Noonan senses the dire mood too.

But the temperature of the world is very high, and maybe we're not stuck in a continuum but barreling down a dark corridor. The problem with heated words now is that it's not the old world anymore. In the old world, incompetent governments dragged cannons through the mud to set up a ragged front. Now every nut and nation wants, has or is trying to develop nukes.

Posted by: annika at 09:43 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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Lord Carey of Clifton just gave a speech at Newbold College in Berkshire. In it, he included an academic quote from political scientist, Samuel Huntington:

Lord Carey, who as Archbishop of Canterbury became a pioneer in Christian-Muslim dialogue, himself quoted a contemporary political scientist, Samuel Huntington, who has said the world is witnessing a “clash of civilisations”.

Arguing that Huntington’s thesis has some “validity”, Lord Carey quoted him as saying: “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”

Lord Carey went on to argue that a “deep-seated Westophobia” has developed in recent years in the Muslim world.

h/t American Princess

Posted by: annika at 09:11 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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First of all, if anyone knows where I can find a transcript of Ahmadi-Nejad's speech please link me to it.

I've been surfing the cable news channels on TV tonight, and now I know much more than I ever need to know about that baby they found, I haven't seen a single show mention anything about half-pint's speech.

Here's a quote from anti-American, pro-terrorist Associated Press's account of the speech:

"The question needs to be asked: if the governments of the United States or the United Kingdom, who are permanent members of the Security Council, commit aggression, occupation and violation of international law, which of the U.N. organs can take them into account?," he asked.

"If they have differences with a nation or state, they drag it to the Security Council," and take the roles of "prosecutor, judge and executioner," he said. "Is this a just order?"

He pointed to Lebanese suffering during the recent Israel-Hezbollah war as an example.

"We witnessed the Security Council ... was practically incapacitated by certain powers to even call for a cease-fire," he said, referring to the fact that the conflict lasted 34 days despite calls for an immediate truce.

I say scrap the U.N. Scrap the whole thing. We don't need it, and it does more harm than good. The legitimacy it is supposed to afford is only an illusion. Witness the string of unenforced and unenforceable resolutions regarding Sudan, Rwanda, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, etc. It's incapable of producing a consensus on the really important stuff, and then the lack of consensus is used to thwart perfectly legitimate actions.

Maybe we should keep some sort of administrative body for UNICEF* and shit like that, but get rid of the rest of that utopian nonsense once and for all.
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* I'm not really sure what UNICEF is, but I think it has something to do with "the children."

Posted by: annika at 08:10 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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I think it's big news when the Supreme Leader of Iran calls for "attacks" on the United States.

Lest there be any confusion about what he meant by "attacks," here's the quote. Note that the word is distinct from "protests."

Those who benefit from the pope's comments and drive their own arrogant policies should be targeted with attacks and protests.

In Iran, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used the comments to call for protests against the United States. He argued that while the pope may have been deceived into making his remarks, the words give the West an "excuse for suppressing Muslims" by depicting them as terrorists.

'Those who benefit from the pope's comments and drive their own arrogant policies should be targeted with attacks and protests,' he said, referring to the United States. [emphasis added]

Maybe I'm missing something, but when the real power in Iran (more so than Ahmadi-Nejad), a country actively seeking a nuclear weapon not to mention a well known sponsor of international terrorism, says that the United States should be attacked because of something the Pope said, I think it deserves to be in the headline.

And we need to start taking the Iranian problem seriously.

Update: Curiouser and curiouser.

Ahmadi-Nejad comes to the Pope's defense.

Mr Ahmadinejad said: "We respect the Pope, and all those interested in peace and justice."

He said he accepted the Vatican view that the pontiffÂ’s words had been "taken out of context" and he was "given to understand" that the Pope had later modified them. He said Benedict had been "misinterpreted".

Mehmet Ai Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to murder John Paul II in 1981 and is now in prison in Turkey, urged the Pope not to visit Turkey in November as planned.

"I write as one who knows about these matters very well," Agca said. "Your life is in danger. Don’t come to Turkey — absolutely not!"

The letter, published by La Repubblica, was seen in Rome as a friendly warning, not a threat.

Posted by: annika at 09:22 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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When I lived in London, every Sunday morning I would take the Circle Line four stops to St. James's Park. I loved to walk through that peaceful garden on my way to church. I loved the Duck Island, with all the geese and swans. It's my favorite of London's parks.

Usually I would go through the park to a very pretty Jesuit Cathedral in Mayfair called Immaculate Conception. But when I was running late (which was about half the time), I'd stay on the Buckingham Palace side of the park and visit Westminster Cathedral (not to be confused with the most famous church in Britain, Westminster Abbey).

So it was sad for me to see the scary pictures posted by A Catholic Londoner and taken outside Westminster Cathedral last Sunday.

Imagine having to run a gauntlet of hate-filled masked protesters, some of them quite possibly terrorists if not murderers, just to go to church.

Again, nice religion assholes.

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From BBC online:

Gunmen have shot dead an elderly Italian nun and her bodyguard in the Somali capital Mogadishu.

The attackers shot the nun three times in the back at a children's hospital in the south of the city, before fleeing the scene.

It is unclear if the shooting is connected with strong criticism by a radical Somali cleric about the Pope's recent comments on Islam.

The nun, who has not been named, is believed to be in her seventies.

The nun was taken into surgery in the Austrian-funded SOS Hospital, in Huriwa district, but she died from her injuries.

A fluent Somali speaker, the nun was one of the longest-serving foreign members of the Catholic Church in Somalia, a former Italian colony.

A Vatican spokesman said the killing was "a horrible act" which he hoped would remain isolated.

Yusuf Mohamed Siad, security chief for the Union of Islamic courts (UIC) which controls Mogadishu, said two people had been arrested.

Nice religion, assholes.

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I know I've already endorsed Elton John to succeed Kofi Annan as U.N. Secretary General, but there is a new candidate who has sparked my interest.

Latvian President Dr. Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga announced her intention yesterday to run for the post. Her competition includes South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon; U.N. undersecretary-general for public affairs Shashi Tharoor of India; Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai; Jordan's U.N. Ambassador Prince Zeid al Hussein; and former U.N. disarmament chief Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka.

Conventional wisdom says that Dr. Vīķe-Freiberga's chances are slim, due to Russian opposition and the informal tradition of rotating the U.N.'s top post between regions. Asia is next in line and therefore many believe Ban Ki-moon to be the front runner.

In Dr. Vīķe-Freiberga's announcement, she addressed the regional rotation issue:

[T]he member states of the UN should be able to select the best candidate for the post of Secretary General in an open, transparent process. We do not accept the principle of regional rotation as the principal and sole factor in the selection of a candidate. While I deeply respect the candidates that have already been nominated, the selection procedure should not restrict the rights and opportunities of other potential candidates. I hope that the choice made by the Security Council and the General Assembly will be based solely on the candidatesÂ’ qualifications, personal qualities and vision of the future of the UN.

She's very popular in Latvia, a country that has done amazingly well since declaring independence from the Soviet empire in 1990. As she told the Danish Foreign Policy Society last month:

The transformation of my own country, Latvia, has taken place at every level. We take pride in having one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. Since 2002, LatviaÂ’s GDP growth has averaged at close to 8% (7.7%) per year. In 2005 it reached 10.2%, the highest rate of growth since the restoration of our independence. And during the first quarter of this year, it was registered at a stunning 13.1%, the highest rate in the European Union. Economic forecasts predict that this stable growth will continue in the coming years.

Latvia has had to work very hard to overcome the tragic legacy of Soviet rule. One of the greatest challenges we have faced is the integration of those persons who settled in our country during the occupation, and their descendants. By the end of July of this year, nearly 114000 persons had naturalized to become citizens of the Republic of Latvia. When we regained our independence in 1991, less than a quarter of those who represent Latvia’s ethnic minorities could speak Latvian. By the year 2000, more than half could, and that percentage continues to rise. We have begun to implement an education reform that balances Latvia’s traditional respect for the rights of minority languages with the need to build a cohesive society. The motto adopted by the EU two years ago is “Unity in Diversity.” Latvia is a multicultural country that adopted one of the first laws guaranteeing education in minority languages close to 100 years ago, in 1919. Our experience with integration can serve as an example at a time when tolerance based in shared values is essential to Europe’s future. Unity and diversity need not necessarily be perceived as contradictory terms.

And this is something that is extremely important for us to study because ideologies that demarcate some human beings under a special label and anybody who belongs to that special label then being marked for extinction, are the very root cause, the very basis of murderous genocides. Elsewhere in the world we see them happening on the basis of tribal belonging, on the basis of religious differences in various parts of the world, in the name of an ideology, in the name of a religion, whatever. It is extremely important for us to understand the principles, by which racism is defined and how is it that not just oppressive regimes and totalitarian governments, but also free movements of volunteers can be seduced into following such ideologies, where the destruction of somebody labelled either as an inferior or as an enemy is part and parcel of oneÂ’s being and when the aim is so high to destroy the other that people even come to the point of destroying themselves, where the hatred becomes so deep that they literally are ready to explode themselves in that hatred in the hope of bringing others along.

Those depths of human hatred have not disappeared from the world. They are still everywhere around us. And even when they are not official policies of some totalitarian government, when they become part of seductive ideologies that actually sway young people to join them, we have to be very very concerned and we have to continue working to understand them.

Latvian troops are currently in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo and Dr. Vīķe-Freiberga is considered an ally of the Bush administration. While that's probably enough to doom her candidacy, I can't help wondering what it would be like to have a pro-American Sec Gen for a change (or at least one who is not openly anti-American and anti-semitic).

Dr. Vīķe-Freiberga concluded her speech to the Danish Foreign Policy Society with these words:

Naturally, every nation has its own, national interests. In today’s world, however, relations between nations are not a zero-sum game. It is in every nation’s interest to overcome the mistrust that prevents the effective functioning of multilateral institutions. In today’s world, no nation can stand alone against the challenges of our era. We will only overcome terrorism and other 21st –century threats if we co-operate more closely and reform the structures that make co-operation possible.

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I predict we're seeing the beginning of the next round of worldwide riots by the "religion of peace." This time over the Pope's remarks at the University of Regensburg.

In case you had any doubt whether the mainstream media would act to pour fuel on the fire or remain objective, here's how Reuters (via CNN) misquoted the Holy Father:

In his speech at the University of Regensburg on Tuesday, Benedict quoted criticism of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who wrote that everything Mohammad brought was evil and inhuman, "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war. He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'

The head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Mahdi Akef, whose organization is one of the oldest, largest and most influential in the Arab world, said the pope 'aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world and strengthened the argument of those who say that the West is hostile to everything Islamic.' [emphasis mine]

The Muslim Brotherhood is "one of the oldest, largest and most influential" organizations in the Arab World? Is it older than say.... the Catholic Church!? I don't get Reuters' point. Never mind the blatant editorialization of the statement (Reuters didn't even try to mask it by turning it into a quote by some supposed expert), am I supposed to give greater weight to Mr. Akef's objections because he's the "leader" of a religious organization that's been around a long time? If so, then I gotta go with the Pope, because they've been around a bit longer.

But that's neither here nor there. Because the organization in question, the Muslim Brotherhood, is in fact an evil organization. And I noticed also that Reuters/CNN neglected to mention that important point.

Catholic author Gary Dale Cearley:

The Muslim Brotherhood? Isn’t that the group whose last part of their motto says ‘death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations’? Aren’t they the ones who assassinated Anwar Al-Sadat, the leader of Egypt and made several attempts on the life of Ghamal Al-Nasser? Wasn’t Ayman Al-Zawahiri a long-time member of this group before joining Islamic Jihad and uniting it with Al-Qaeda? Isn’t the Muslim Brotherhood outlawed in its ‘normal’ form in several Arab countries today? Isn’t the Muslim Brotherhood one of the largest supporters and benefactors of Hamas? Isn’t the Muslim Brotherhood’s stated goal to unite the entire world as one nation under Islam? Why should we be alarmed that the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader, Mohamed Mahdi Akef, said the Pope ‘aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world and strengthened the argument of those who say that the West is hostile to everything Islamic’? The Pope was simply quoting a man, Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who was one of the last Byzantine rulers who was very often being attacked by the Muslim Ottomans. Manuel II had seen what Islam was doing to his nation.

Indonesian protest organizer Heri Budianto:

Of course as we know the meaning of jihad can only be understood by Muslims . . . Only Muslims can understand what jihad is. It is impossible that jihad can be linked with violence, we Muslims have no violent character."

From Iraq's Sheik Salah al-Ubaidi:

In Iraq's Shiite Muslim-stronghold of Kufa, Sheik Salah al-Ubaidi criticized the pope during Friday prayers, saying his remarks were a second assault on Islam.

'Last year and in the same month the Danish cartoon assaulted Islam,' he said, referring to a Danish newspaper's publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, which triggered outrage in the Muslim world.

In Britain, Muhammad Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council said:

One would expect a religious leader such as the pope to act and speak with responsibility and repudiate the Byzantine emperor's views in the interests of truth and harmonious relations between the followers of Islam and Catholicism.

The Pope's invitation to visit Turkey (the home of Mehmet Ali Ağca, lest we forget) is now in jeopardy.

In Turkey, . . . Ali Bardakoglu, the head of Ankara's Directorate General for Religious Affairs, . . . describ[ed] the pope's words as 'extremely regrettable.'

'I do not see any use in somebody visiting the Islamic world who thinks in this way about the holy prophet of Islam. He should first rid himself of feelings of hate,' NTV's Web site quoted Bardakoglu as saying.

Bardakoglu . . . recalled atrocities committed by Roman Catholic Crusaders during the Middle Ages in the name of their faith against Orthodox Christians and Jews as well as Muslims.

I believe that Benedict touched a nerve with these people and that nerve has direct historical roots the Muslims are refusing to consider. Where does the Muslim responsibility to rid themselves of these feelings and reign themselves in begin and end? Constantly falling back on harkening to the Crusades is for their audience, which is an audience that forgets, or refuses to remember, that the Arabs forced scores of people from many nations and religions in conquered territories to convert over the centuries. In many countries these periods of forced conversion were the most bloody chapters of their history. And even more important, these Muslim leaders ignore the fact that at varying times the Muslims took their own ‘Crusades’ to Europe, pushing their way to Austria and to the Pyrenees mountains at different points in history. These pushes into Europe both pre-date the Crusades to the Holy Land by several centuries and they continued after the Crusades to the Holy Land, again for several centuries. Standing eye to eye and toe to toe, Islam has more to answer for in the West than the West has to answer for to Islam but you will never hear this from a Muslim ‘spokesperson’.

That said, I do think Pope Benedict might have been better off leaving that one particular quote from Manuel II out of his speech. But what's done is done. The bell can't be unrung. What's next is for us to see once more how tolerant the "religion of peace" is towards any type of criticism. Especially in this case, when the Pope's speech was not meant as criticism.

Update: Here's another laughably ironic comment from a muslim writing in London's al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper. First he says that "there is no difference between" the Holy Father, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Regarding the Pope's speech, he goes on to say:

These are ignorant comments previously made by Adolf Hitler, who spoke of a supreme white race against all the other races, especially the African race.

Michelle Malkin has a roundup of the unsurprising violence now beginning in the muslim world. These idiots are lashing out at anything and everything non-muslim. They're confusing Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches with Catholic ones, and they're calling the anti-war Pope a part of the Zionist American conspiracy.

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One of the purposes of this blog, as I have said before, is to learn from my readers. I have a theory in mind, and I'm wondering if I'm on the right track. Please help me by taking this short answer essay test. One sentence answers are best.

1. Why did the Confederacy bomb Fort Sumter?


2. Why did Germany invade the Soviet Union?


3. Why did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor?


4. Why did Muslim terrorists bomb the World Trade Center in 1993?


5. Why did Muslim terrorists bomb the World Trade Center in 2001?


6. Generally speaking, is there a common motivator among all these acts?

Please mail your answers here.

Update: Thanks for all the great responses. Now I think my theory is not so good. And probably question number one doesn't really belong there since, as many of you pointed out, Ft. Sumter was bombed in response to Federal resupply of the island, and was not a surprise attack.

I had been thinking that all of the above actions were pre-emptive strikes by inferior forces against a superior power. And the common theme would be that each of the attackers had a particular vision of society, and in each case the attackee uniquely stood in the way of the attacker's vision.

However, the Germans and the Japanese planned to shorten a war of conquest by their surprise attacks, while the same cannot really be said of the WTC bombers. The terrorists are not capable of fighting any war of conquest, and I don't really believe they expected the response they got after 2001.

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From Reuters:

A ship bound for Syria from North Korea and detained in Cyprus on an Interpol alert for suspected arms smuggling was carrying air defense systems, Cypriot authorities said on Monday.

The shipment was billed as weather-observation equipment on the freight manifest of the Panamanian-flagged Grigorio 1 and officials said the Syrian government had asked Cyprus to release the seized consignment.

"To my knowledge their name doesn't appear anywhere on the manifest as the consignee, but they have got involved," a senior shipping industry source in Nicosia told Reuters.

He said the vessel had been tracked over a long period of time.

The ship was carrying 18 truck-mounted mobile radar systems and three command vehicles. "The radars on the 18 trucks appear to be part of an air defense system," a police spokeswoman said.

10 bucks says the "international community" does squat about this violation.

h/t LGF

Posted by: annika at 10:43 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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This morning, I tried to find CNN's replay of their 9/11 coverage, but it wasn't on tv. I did find NBC's replay, which was broadcast on MSNBC. What I saw bothered me a lot, and I waited all day to post something about it.

Now that I'm home, I was able to view the CNN coverage from that day, thanks to Hot Air. I was able to compare CNN's excellent coverage to NBC's, or I should say, contrast. I've often been critical of CNN, but all I can say is I do miss Aaron Brown.

Kiki Couric and Tom Brokaw were incredibly bad by any standard, and I can't understand why. Somewhere, somehow, the two of them got the idea that good journalism means completely divorcing yourself from all human feeling. Or, perhaps, that the "citizens of the world" ideal that today's elite media have fetishized required them to abandon any sense of horror in order not to offend those viewers who might have been happy about the deaths of thousands.

Or perhaps the two of them thought that by remaining scrupulously objective, they might win some sort of award or peer recognition for their level-headedness. Instead, Couric and Brokaw came off as more wooden than Mr. Spock. Or Al Gore. I don't know what made them think that emotionlessness was required on that day, of all days. The most memorable newscasts during tragic events have always included the broadcaster's personal reactions — and yes emotions — while simultaneously reporting the news. Think Walter Cronkite and JFK, Frank Reynolds and Reagan, or to go way back, Herb Morrison and the Hindenburg.

Amazingly, as I watched the South Tower collapse, Kiki and Tom said nothing. It was as if they didn't see it. But how could that be? It was their job to see it. Then, as Manhattan disappeared behind a thick wall of smoke they continued to act as if nothing had happened. I waited and waited, but they made no mention of the incredible scene unfolding before their very eyes. In fact, it wasn't until eight long minutes later that another correspondent said the first thing about the tower collapsing!

Which brings up an interesting point. Michael Moore made a career out of criticizing Bush's "seven long minutes." But here were two experienced and celebrated journalists, who's job it was to report what was happening, and they completely failed to mention the biggest thing either of them had ever witnessed or would ever witness in their entire careers. Eight long minutes they sat there repeating banalities while lower Manhattan was entirely engulfed in smoke and neither of them said a word about it.

Here's a clip of when the other correspondent stated the obvious for the very first time, "When you look at it the building has collapsed. That building just came down." Listen to what Kiki says at the very end. Instead of reacting to this horrific and unimaginable event, she immediately cuts the reporter off and goes to "Bob Bazell who's at St. Vincent's Hospital..." Infreakincredible.

Which is why Aaron Brown's coverage stands out. When the South Tower began to fall, he interrupted another remote immediately. He then described what we all watched, as it happened, with words like "extraordinarily frightening," which is exactly what it was.

It's a disgrace that Aaron Brown is now teaching at ASU, while Kiki Couric is making $15 million a year.

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In honor of the fallen.

Go here and read some of the tributes.

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