Blogging has been light over the last couple of days, and probably will
be so for the coming period. I started a new job recently, while
starting up a company of my own in the mean time, so Al Qaeda and the
Spanish government will have to take a back seat, at least for the next
few days/weeks.

Posting will be irregular the coming days, as I'm between internet providers at home, while at the same time moving office.

Kerry The French Mime

Via Soxblog, from the New York Times:

'Mr. Kerry moved his hands almost continuously, at one point folding them over his heart like a French mime..'

The Big Debate (III and Final)

Nothing much new to add to my previous posts, but of course I did read some of the other blogs this morning, and here's a selection of interesting posts for your approval:

At National Review, David Frum thinks President Bush took the biggest risk of the night:

Remarkably, it was the man with the big lead – President Bush – who took the debate’s biggest risk: His frank discussion of meeting with the wife of a slain soldier, PJ Johnson. To talk so candidly and personally about grief and loss is not something that presidents who have ordered men into battle have been accustomed to do. But Bush did it – and thus created what may have been the evening’s most memorable and moving moment.

I agree with NRO Kerry Spot's Jim Geraghty's prediction:

Prediction Three: Here's my shocker: No bounce for either side out of this. This evening's comments just reinforced the messages that came out of each party's convention. Of course, Kerry got no convention bounce, while Bush got a fairly solid convention bounce, so maybe he'll get a little bump. [...] UPDATE: Kerry Spot reader Keith offers this observation that I agree with: As much as some of us political geeks may have enjoyed tonight, because there was nothing shocking or surprising, there's no way that much of the public is going to watch two more 9- minute sessions of this. They'll catch a few minutes, but so far the debate has just confirmed what they already knew.

OxBlog was live blogging, and towards the end made these observations:

10:05 PM: Every time Bush is in trouble he talks about "freedom" and "democracy" as the way to win the war in terror. How many times has Kerry used either of those words? What is his vision for winning the war on terror?

10:21 PM: I was hoping that Bush would connect the dots and say that democracy in Russia is critical to acheiving a global victory in the war on terror. If democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is critical why not in Russia?

By the same token, why didn't Kerry challenge Bush to be consistent? Why not ask him why he demands democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan but not Russia? I think it is because Kerry doesn't believe there is an integral relationship between promoting democracy and winning the war on terror.

Kerry in my mind is someone who holds a typical diplomat's (of course, there are exceptions) view of the world, fraught of any idealism, willing to deal with anyone, no matter how many of his own people he slaughtered last year. Very Realpolitik, and, ironically, very "the vision thing".

Captain's Quarters was live blogging also (don't forget their Caption Contest!), and I wholeheartedly support their analysis of Kerry's North Korea plan:

One point Candidate Kerry has remained consistent on during last night's debate is his plan to open bilateral talks with nK. When asked how he would deal with what he perceived as the greatest threat to America, Kerry responded, "I'm going to immediately set out to have bilateral talks with North Korea."

President Bush immediately rebutted this idea, explaining:

Again, I can't tell you how big a mistake I think that is, to have bilateral talks with North Korea. It's precisely what Kim Jong Il wants. It will cause the six-party talks to evaporate. It will mean that China no longer is involved in convincing, along with us, for Kim Jong Il to get rid of his weapons. It's a big mistake to do that.

We must have China's leverage on Kim Jong Il, besides ourselves. And if you enter bilateral talks, they'll be happy to walk away from the table. I don't think that'll work.

President Bush is correct that multilateral talks are the only diplomatic method which has any chance of putting an end to the Jonger's nuclear ambitions. But there's more.

nK has been characterized by many academics and political analysts as a "tribute-seeking state" which thrives and survives by demanding respect and rewards from other states. Since 1993 Pyongyang has used its nuclear program to blackmail the US into offering recognition, security assurances, and economic benefits. Kim Jong Il plays this game well, always recognizing when he has gone too far in his demands and backing away from the ledge of war.

In 1994 President Clinton made the mistake of paying tribute to nK, allowing former president Carter (aka the "Great Appeaser") to negotiate with Kim Il Sung. nK learned its nuclear program was its greatest bargaining chip, gaining it the desired tribute from the US. This became evident during the extended negotiations for the Agreed Framework, where the US and South Korea gave the North light water reactors in return for a nuclear freeze: the nK delegation insisted that the agreement characterize the reactors as being provided by and built by the US, even though the reactors were in fact designed and purchased by South Korea.

Today nK is once again leveraging its nuclear weapons program to gain tribute from the US, and Senator Kerry is willing, even anxious, to pay it to them.

Joe Gandelman at A Moderate Voice (who's is starting to get a reputation for Rounding up All the Round Ups) has some class act analysis and, yes, a round up of other blogs' reactions. His conclusions:

In the end, this was an ISSUES ORIENTED DEBATE -- and no matter who is ultimately judged to be the winner (a product of the Spin War, media follow-the-leader consensus plus what happens in the polls that can be turned into a dramatic development to generate a new theme of pack journalism stories) the winner was the political process. This debate stayed on issues and made Democracy proud.

Ok I have to leave it at this, but I want to close with a bang --a Wizbang:

10:26: Closing statements. More platitudes from Kerry, more generalities, and one final Vietnam allusion. Bush again cites his record and promises to expand on them. The choice is clear, to me: What Bush has done vs. Kerry's vague promises. Why can't Kerry run on his achievements? Oh, yeah, over the last 30-odd years, he HASN'T HAD HARDLY ANY WORTH MENTIONING.

UPDATE: Instapundit pointed me towards The Truth Laid Bear's analysis of Lehrer's questions, something I was missing still. Must read, with further pointers to INDC Journal, who did not think there was bias, and Hugh Hewitt, who does think so.

Oh and if you're hitting this page in the archives, please do pick up my impression of Kerry As A French Mime, through the eyes of the New York Times (file under: 'it doesn't help, you know').

The Big Debate (II)

Just finished watching the debate, I made some notes, and I'll try and give my brief opinion before hitting the sack.

Overall, I think the debate was won by President Bush, not so much perhaps on the eloquence of his answers, but on the substance of them. I think the debating rules, forcing Senator Kerry to give to the point answers, benefitted Kerry greatly.

As to the points raised, I just have a couple of thoughts. First, it seemed Kerry was trying to be everything to everyone at the same time, with remarks on going into Iraq so Halliburton could reap the spoils of war (which I thought was the moral low point of the debate), to his tough-talking on fighting a 'smarter' War on Terror.

Then, and this in my opinion is scary --this man wants to be President of the United States after all, in the middle of a very complex shooting war-- I have sincerely come to the conclusion that John F. Kerry has absolutely no clue of what is happening outside the US. Seriously, anybody claiming tonight that Kerry won the debate, purely on account of his semantics, style or whatever (and yes, both commentators at the Spanish channel TeleCinco inmediately agreed that Kerry won, since he 'got President Bush on the defensive'), does not or will not see it.

His denigrating of allies like Poland ('He forgot Poland!'), the United Kingdom and Australia, insisting that we should have turned to Kofi Annan for help right after the fall of Baghdad (who pulled out himself immediately after the UN compound was targeted), and somehow insisting (twice I believe) that because US forces --visibly-- guarded the Iraqi Oil Ministry after the fall of Baghdad, and not (again, 'visibly' is key) its nuclear sites, Iraqis would think the US is making plans to annex the place, all very irate.

But the worst thing to come out of this debate is his insistance on bilateral talks with North Korea. In fact, bilateral talks with the Norks, and a repeat of the failed Clinton approach to Pyong Yang, instead now towards Iran. Fool me once, et cetera.

President Bush was consistent in his message, clear and decisive as a wartime leader. He refuted all of Kerry's claims, and gave a couple of good counters (in fact, you'd think he spends a lot of time reading blogs).

To me, his most interesting moment came when he emphatically insisted, 'I just know how this world works!' He struck me most sincere, maybe a bit like a family member or a good friend that would say someting like that to you, and afterwards you would lend him some money to go and execute his plan.

You may not see it yourself, or think he could do it differently, but you would still trust him to spend it wisely and not squander it.

The Big Debate (I)

Like said before, Spanish tv is broadcasting the first presidential debate tonight, and I'll try and post my impressions as the debate progresses. I'll be watching it here from 3 AM local time onwards, so if I start to sound incoherent at some point, you'll know why.

At this moment it still is not clear to me whether or not the debate will be broadcast with subtitles, or if TeleCinco will dub the English with a live translation. I hope the first, as these simultaneous translations are awful, with the translator usually losing track somewhere, rabble some things and jump in again, literally losing something in the translation.

Okay, coffee: check. Bush & Cheney sweater: check. Señora Southern Watch to bed: check. Let's bring it on!

EU Gives Green Light: MCI Worldcom Can Buy Sprint!

Better late than never, they must have thought when yesterday the EU's antitrust cops preventing the takeover from materializing in 2000 saw themselves reversed in an appeals tribunal. The Wall Street Journal from yesterday (page A16, link requires registration):

BRUSSELS -- In a fresh blow to Europe's antitrust enforcers, a top appeals tribunal said regulators wrongly blocked MCI WorldCom's aborted bid to buy Sprint Corp. in 2000.

While yesterday's ruling doesn't resurrect the deal, it improves the prospects that MCI, the successor firm that emerged from U.S. bankruptcy court earlier this year, could win European regulatory approval for a future merger. At the same time, the decision underscores European Union judges' willingness to overturn antitrust rulings, only days before EU lawyers are scheduled to urge the same court to implement antitrust sanctions against Microsoft Corp. EU officials also warned that it could encourage companies to withdraw mergers at the last minute to avoid negative rulings.

Wait a second, 'MCI, the successor firm that emerged from U.S. bankruptcy court earlier this year'?

Huh? I thought it was MFS Worldcom?

Spain Considers U.S. Army Terrorists

I hope the feces are going to hit the air ventilation systems over this one. The Spanish parliament yesterday decided to consider José Couso, a Spanish camera man for TeleCinco, a victim of terrorism.

Couso was killed by American fire while filming from his balcony in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on April 8, during the American liberation of that city. There was an investigation by the US Army, which concluded that the tank commander acted correctly. There were snipers in the area, and the lense of a camera flickering in the sun can be similar to that of a sniper's scope or a spotter's binoculars. The U.S. Army did apologize for the matter to Spain's --then-- Aznar government, which considered the matter closed.

Not so for the Socialists, and in their all-consuming hate for everything Aznar has done for this country, the prime directive for Zapatero's government seems to be to revise history wherever possible. Add to this the virulent anti-Americanism present in his government, and Prime Minister Zapatero's stance of actively undermining US foreign policy and thereby indirectly putting American GIs as well as the Iraqi population under increased threat, as well as seeking alignment with Arab dictatorships, the next low for the Spanish socialists had to be to accuse the Americans of terrorism.

The Communist left (IU) together with a regional ecological party have introduced a bill in parliament, which would consider José Couso's death an act of 'international terrorism'. Zapatero's Socialists have said to support the bill, focusing for their part on the state benefits his family will receive because of this, the intention of the bill is clear: The U.S. Army are terrorists.

If they want to pay his family benefits, there's a million different ways to do so in this Keynesian wet dream of a country.

Former Prime Minister Aznar's Partido Popular party is against it, logically one would want to think, but in this country I sometimes get the impression that everything has been put upside down since Al Qaeda chased them out of Iraq.

I sincerely hope the United States lodge a formal complaint with the Spanish government on this.

Another Victory For Al Qaeda In The Making?

Spanish news agency EFE reports on the Spanish contingent deployed in Afghanistan (no link available, but copied in full):

Spain to bring home battalion from Afghanistan after elections
Kabul, Sep 30 (EFE).- Spain's defense minister said here Thursday that about half of his nation's thousand-plus contingent of soldiers in Afghanistan will be brought home following elections next month.

Defense Minister Jose Bono commented after meeting with President Hamid Karzai, a candidate in elections set for Oct. 9.
He said Karzai asked him for an extension of the presence of the Spanish contingent. The minister said he told the Afghan leader that the soldiers running a field hospital in Kabul would remain, but that a 500-strong battalion in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif would be brought home following the vote.
Bono was accompanied here by high-ranking military officers and a delegation of legislators.
Though the Socialist government withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq soon after taking office in April, the deployment of 1,040 soldiers to Afghanistan, where a U.N. mandate is in effect, was approved by the administration and congress in July. EFE aam/dgm

Note the 'where a U.N. mandate is in effect'. Hey Bono, Iraq has a U.N. Mandate too!

But seriously, I have said it before, by giving off such a clear timeline for withdrawal, combined with Spain's retreat from Iraq in the face of Al Qaeda's bombings in Madrid, this government is inviting another attack, either here in Spain, or on its troops in Afghanistan, towards the end of their stay.

If Spain would decide to stay afterwards, it would do so accepting the theory that their retreat from Iraq was in effect a victory for Al Qaeda, contrary to what the Socialist government has been claiming to anyone who would care to listen.

If Spain would decide to stick to their 'but it was a promise to the Spanish people' spiel, they would also have to retreat from Afghanistan at the set date, again claiming this was promised to the Spaniards. Which means that with an attack, followed by an --again-- much publicized retreat, this time from Afghanistan, Zapatero would have handed Al Qaeda a Game, Set and Match.

To open the door for evicting the Spaniards from the last muslim lands they occupy, Al Andalus.

As a reminder to Spanish readers, Spanish television (Tele5) will broadcast the first debate between President Bush and Senator Kerry tonight (3 AM local). Hopefully someone at Tele5 will do live subtitles instead of the horrible live translating, which over the years has caused me to develop a hearing comparable to that of a dog, listening through the translator's voice to pick up the English in the background.

Still, better than having to beg my neighbor to watch it on satellite.

The Algerian security forces have clashed with an Al Qaeda-linked GSPC group outside the village of Aïn El-Hammam yesterday, some 50 kilometers from Tizi Ouzou. Algerian newspaper Liberté reports on it (link in French) and says that in the encounter and ensuing gun fight which lasted for some fifteen hours, security forces killed one terrorist and captured another, while three more escaped. At the time of the report, a big anti-terror operation was said to be underway in the region of Tizi Ouzou, with government forces putting up checkpoints along the highways.

There is an army base some ten kilometers from where it happened. Even though a lot of stories are circulating about the demise of the GSPC, I just never get the impression that this is a group on the run.

Saudi Imam Financed 3/11 Plotter

Spanish newspaper El Mundo (link in Spanish) writes on new details filtering out of phone conversations by Rabei Osman, aka 'The Egyptian', which were tapped by Italian police in Milan on 26 May, two weeks before his arrest. Osman is seen as one of the main plotters of the March 11 Madrid bomb attacks.

It turns out Osman was financed by a radical Saudi Wahhabi (or more correctly, Salafist) imam called Salman Al Aouda. Al Aouda was arrested by the Saudis in 1994 for his activities against the House Al Saud, as head of the 'Batallion of Faith'. Very little information is publicly available about this guy, although the article does describe him as being a high ranking Al Qaeda member and a 'precursor' to Al Qaeda, as a historical opponent of the House Al Saud.

The report also mentions that Osman talked of a friend in Germany, who needed money for a 'project' there named 'Nour' (a common Arab name), which entailed the construction of islamic schools.

Personally, I don't believe Al Aouda would be an operational Al Qaeda member, an inspirational figure, yes.

France's Foot In Baghdad's Door (Part II)

Little Green Footballs points to an International Herald Tribune article on a proposed international conference on Iraq:

France said Monday that it would take part in a proposed international conference on Iraq only if the agenda included a possible U.S. troop withdrawal, thus complicating the planning for a meeting that has drawn mixed reactions.

Paris also wants representatives of Iraq's insurgent groups to be invited to a conference in October or November, a call that would seem difficult for the Bush administration to accept.

We've posted on France's possible Quid Pro Quo deal with Iraqi hostage takers holding two French journalists before. As news on the whereabouts or status of the journalists remain blurry (dead, being sold from group to group, working for Al Jazeerah), it may well be the case that their hostage takers have asked the French government of some proof of their abilities to influence the Iraqi process, and obtain a role for the terrorists.

Very sickening. My first thought was, what would Kerry think of all this? He has been to Paris before to meet with the enemy. Poor Kerry, history is catching up with him fast.

UPDATE: I started writing this post yesterday, and meanwhile the good news about the release of Italian hostages has been replaced by worries about a possible ransom having been paid. This spells more trouble for foreigners in Iraq.

Free Cuban Prisoners Of Conscience

We posted before on Spain's former prime minister José Maria Aznar's speech at the presentation of the Manifesto for the liberation of Cuban prisoners of conscience- At the time, the manifest could not be signed online, nor was there an English version available.

I'm happy to let you know that this has now been taken care of, and both a Spanish as well as an English version of the Manifesto can be read and signed online.

If you care for Cuba's freedom loving political activists (which, by the mere fact of having and expressing a different opinion than the regime's line, anybody automatically becomes an activist), than here's your chance to show it.

If you have a blog, please take a moment to link to this post, or to make your own!

Socialist International

Spain's Minister of Retreat Defense, José Bono, paid a surprise visit to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez last Friday, on his way back from Colombia, due to a tecnical failure of his airplane. Chavez, who happens to be shopping for arms which he doesn't really need, other than threaten his neighbors and oppress his own people.

Bono recently cancelled the sale, agreed by the last government of Aznar, to Colombia of 46 AMX-30 tanks and 20 howitzers to Colombia. Instead, Bono announced during his visit the donation of two C-212 military transport aircraft that can be used for medevac, along with supplies for a field hospital.

So no arms sales to Colombia, which fights FARC terrorists, drug lords and other thugs, instead donating material that can be used to retreat.

Venezualan strongman Hugo Chavez refuses to see FARC as terrorists. Last week, a cross-border attack on Venezualan oil installations was dismissed at first to be FARC, according to Colombia intelligence, instead insisting the hand of right-wing President Uribe was in a presumed attempt to destabilize Venezuela.

My take is that with Chavez' offensive arms buying spree, his lack of support at home (I agree with Thomas Barnett that at some point he will declare himself President-For-Life), and his lackluster condemnation of FARC (some even say covert support), he may be in cahoots with the FARC in trying to set the stage for a small border war with Colombia, as do all dictators who need to shift focus at some stage.

Last Sunday, during his weekly radio show, he praised Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Zapatero's plan for his Alliance of Civilizations and announced he would put Venezuela's support behind it.

So briefly, we have Spain cancelling arm sales to Colombia, a cross-border FARC attack on Venezuelan oil installations, a Spanish Minister of Retreat Defense who needs to touch down after engine problems in Venezuela, Chavez' support for Zapatero's Surrender to Jihad two days later, and finally Chavez visiting Spain on a state visit, possibly as early as November. Will they talk arms sales? Possibly, as Spain's socialists are looking for ways to keep their naval shipyards open.

It's a bridge too far to claim that Spain might be aiding Venezuela in a possible conflict with Colombia. What is emerging is that Spain's new Socialist government now not only seeks to move itself closer to the Arab World, but is also actively distancing itself from struggling democracies, instead seeking to align itself more with Socialist regimes around the world, even if they are a destabilizing factor in the region. Arms sales to Venezuela would be a very strong indicator of this new alignment.

CEO Blogs

Hmm, don't know what to make of this. TheNewPR.com has a listing (actually, it's a Wiki, but for some reason I cannot rationally explain, I hate that word. Brings up images of lefties sitting on the floor of some run-down building, sharing stuff) of CEOs blogging, next to their daily CEO activities. Among the more famous CEOs or famous companies represented, there's Tucows' Eliot Noss, Dallas Mavericks owner Marc Cuban, the FCC's Michael Powell (although apparently some doubt that it is a blog), VOIP guru Jeff Pulver and Sun Sytems COO Jonathan Schwartz.

For some reason there's a huge list of French CEOs, all blogging. Guess their economy is doing so great, they have lots of time left to blog. Or maybe the trade unions run the companies there, who knows.

The fact that it is listed at some PR organization, strenghtens my belief in the 'sincerity' or maybe even personalness of some of these blogs. I can imagine that at least for publicly traded companies, the posts would need to be revised, or edited. Or maybe its just an instrument to talk up the stock price. Anyhow, anyone blogging as a CEO would be worth reading with extra scepsis.

"That's My President, Hooah!"

Blogsforbush.com has this wonderful post on President Bush's surprise visit with troops heading out to Iraq:

The soldiers mostly had cameras ready to take snapshots of Bush. Several requested autographs. They called out phrases such as "this is awesome." The president put a tie and suit jacket on after the rally and walked down one aisle and back up the other, offering gentle smiles and words such as "I'm proud of you" and "thank you." Pool was not close enough to hear any more than that. As he got to the rear of the plane, Sgt. Wanda Dabbs, 22, of the 230th, called out, "That's my president, hooah!" and there were cheers. At the end of the handshakes on the packed, hot plane, Bush got on the PA system from the middle galley. "I appreciate being president to such fine men and women. May God bless you all. May God keep you safe." Potus took the limo the few hundred yards between the two planes.

Go there, read it all, it's great.

PayPal Doesn't Get It

Last post for the day, if you use Paypal, either to send or to receive payments, this is for you. Go over to Daily Pundit and read the mail they got regarding PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy, and shutting down his account.

To appeal the limitation on your account, you will need to:

1. Remove those items from your website that violate PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. For example, any link to images or videos of terrorsit executions; and

Daily Pundit is a blog, of course, and links to news stories, like any other blog would do. News stories like terrorists beheading foreigners in Iraq, and yes, the footage too. What, pictures and videos of Abu Ghraib are allowed, but not beheadings by terrorists? Who are PayPal to decide what is acceptable and what isn't?

I understand the AUP, I just think they applied it wrongly in this case.

I mailed PayPal from their site (they do not have an email address, although you may try service@paypal.com or service@int.paypal.com), and I would tell other bloggers using PayPal (for whatever reason) to do the same.

Movie Tips To Impress Your Left-Wing Wacko Girlfriend

I'm sure this beauty will be all over self-respecting and America-loathing film houses in Spain shortly: The Take, by Avi Lewis and "the poster girl of brainless anti-global left and the global village idiot", Naomi Klein. 'The Take' is set in Argentina, and examines the grass-roots cooperative movement in financially devastated Argentina, raises basic questions about economics, government and human nature.

TimesWatch.org reports on how at the New York Times, Stephen Holden apparently does not see Marxism as a bad thing:

After a one-sided look at Argentina's post-privatization woes, Holden concludes with a warning that Marxist gains may not last forever and that individualistic greed could always resurface. Yet Holden holds out hope about "humanity" (seemingly identified here as acceptance of neo-Marxist dogma): "Even given the rosiest financial scenario, at what point do the old ways resurface and brute self-interest and corruption kick in? After watching the film, your outlook will depend on the degree of your belief in humanity and your familiarity with history. Whatever happens, the movement still faces an uphill battle."

The review can be found here (registration required). Spanish readers need not read it, as the Spanish press will write even more 'passionate' reviews, I'm sure. I'll make a mental note to translate one to prove it.

The Red-Green Alliance

Barcepundit's Franco Aleman must have recovered from reading this profile of Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero in Time Magazine (go on, read it and pity us here! Quote: "I don't want to be a great leader"), because he has a post up on which I had some thoughts, too.

He notes that after the Madrid attacks on March 11 of this year, imprisoned ETA terrorists celebrated together with Algerian (GIA, GSPC) terrorists also in prison.

Very disturbing, but hardly surprising. Former Prime Minister José Maria Aznar to this date does not want to discard a possible link between Spain's Marxist-Separatist ETA and Al Qaeda. There are proven contacts between ETA and Algerian terrorists and ETA members attending their training camps in Algeria, going back to the early nineties.

Of course, most Western intellectuals and governments refuse to believe links exist between classical Marxist terrorist groups and the Islamist kind. Samizdata once pointed me to an article by Waller R. Newell, titled: "Postmodern Jihad: What Osama bin Laden learned from the Left." It's an eye-opener:

THE RELATIONSHIP between postmodernist European leftism and Islamic radicalism is a two-way street: Not only have Islamists drawn on the legacy of the European Left, but European Marxists have taken heart from Islamic terrorists who seemed close to achieving the longed-for revolution against American hegemony. Consider Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, two leading avatars of postmodernism. Foucault was sent by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera to observe the Iranian revolution and the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Like Sartre, who had rhapsodized over the Algerian revolution, Foucault was enthralled, pronouncing Khomeini "a kind of mystic saint." The Frenchman welcomed "Islamic government" as a new form of "political spirituality" that could inspire Western radicals to combat capitalist hegemony.

Samizdata comments:

Derrida reacted to the collapse of the Soviet Union by calling for a "new international." Whereas the old international was made up of the economically oppressed, a new alliance of “the dispossessed and the marginalized" would unite to combat American led globalization.

Newell notes that Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in their recent potboiler Empire depict an American dominated global order as the contemporary version of the bourgeoisie, with Islamist terrorism the spearhead of "the post-modern revolution" against "the new imperial order." Why? Because of "its refusal of modernity as a weapon of Euro-American hegemony."

What the terrorists have in common with that strand of European nihilism, whose consequences in Europe in the C20th were millions of deaths, is belief in the primacy of the radical will, unrestrained by any existing moral teachings. This is the reason why Al Qaeda finds it easy to ignore the teachings of mainstream Islam, which prohibits the deliberate killing of non-combatants; they not only hate their [former] selves, they not only hate the [contemporary] world, their religion is based upon hatred of God.

Read them both, and José Maria Aznar's assumption of a possible cooperation between Red and Green in the March 11 attacks on Madrid will not seem so out of this world anymore.

Internal Struggles Within GSPC

Algerian newspaper Liberté runs a story about the Al Qaeda-linked Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC by its French acronym, which according to their reporting is faced with internal struggles (link in French) over control of the organization.

Recently, the GSPC announced the appointment of Abou Mossab Abdelouadoud, or Abdelmalek Dourkdal as his real name is, as its new emir. After the death of GSPC leaders Hassan Hattab and Nabil Sahraoui and the capture of his second in command, Amari Saifi, alias Abderrazak el Para, by Chadian rebel group MDJT.

It now seems that Abou Mossab appointed himself in a power vacuum, and that some regional GSPC leaders or emirs refuse to pledge allegiance to him. Some local GSPC emirs have even given orders to their commanders to kill Mossab when encountered.

The operational structure of the GSPC is that of regional commanders or emirs, which 'control' an area of a few hundred square kilometers, each with no more than approximately one hundred men.

Liberté gives as main reasons for the infighting the intention of Mossab to open a second front with terrorist attacks in Mila province, where a local and dissenting GSPC emir would face the full brunt of the security forces response. This supposedly to take off pressure on GSPC strongholds in Boumerdès, where the GSPC has been put on the defense since the security forces' offensive which started in August. But it is widely seen as an attempt by Mossab to consolidate his leadership, at the expense of dissenters.

And finally money. According to Liberté, a lot of the internal struggle also has to do with how the spoils of the GSPC terror campaigns should be divided.

As for my own thoughts, this infighting could have been expected, and reminds me of the Israeli targeted killings of Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations' leaders. By assuring that no new leader can take the reigns, the Israelis have provoked infighting among the Palestinian factions. The leadership crisis within the GSPC, with its strong regional command structure, shows similar signs now that its leaders are dead or captured. But it also means that the pressure is on the Algerian government now to ensure this crisis endures, which is difficult with limited military means and regional GSPC leaders which are harder to target.

No, I'm Just Browsing...

In between things, a quick look into my trusty RSS feed reader tells me that Jayson Blair is rooting for Dan Rather. Quote: "I’d give up the book royalties if I could get my credibility and career back." Jayson, unlike Dan Rather, you never had any credibility to lose.

Andrew McCarthy at National Review has some thoughts on Kerry's Iraq end strategy, and a reminder that we are not at war with 'terrorism', but with militant Islam. An undefinable enemy makes it easy for detractors to question if President Bush hasn't lost sight, he writes. He also points out (like so many before him) how Iraq ties into this war on militant Islam.

Dhimmi Watch reports on 'Europe's Chief Dhimmi', Spain's Zapatero. Though our post is better I think, he usually gets really good commentaries in the comments section at the end...

A post I definitely want to mention is Belmont's thoughts on the Human Security Doctrine For Europe, The EU's response on the Bush Doctrine. Al Qaeda chiefs must be wetting themselves reading this utterly preposterous document. The comments section is also laden with arguments on how this is nothing but a 'not American' policy document which, if indeed leads to the formation of a Human Security Force (with civil servants!), will never ever get to a war zone. Ever. Which is precisely what they intended in the first place, I suppose.

Chrenkoff has a good post on the UN's Security Council, and the objections that new prospective members are causing among the current members and others. Japan, Germany, India and Brazil are all hoping to be included. Kofi Anan must be hoping that all UN members can join, so he can finally pass one of those anti-Israeli resolutions piling on his desk. Personally, I think this will only speed up the UN's desintegration. Maybe the Human Security Force can take over the humanitarian work afterwards.

A good initiative: If you're Spanish, or live in Spain, go over to HazteOir.org, where they're campaigning against Spain's government appeasing foreign policies, calling on other nations to follow Spain's lead and pull out of Iraq, while at the same time terrorist scum beheading innocents are demanding the same thing. You can sign a petition, aptly called 'Not In My Name!' distancing yourself from the Spanish government's actions while thanking the 17 countries with troops in Iraq. The petition will be sent to their embassies in Spain.

MERIA, the Middle Eastern Review of International Affairs, has its September issue out, and includes this article on Israel's experience with living under a WMD threat, and the lessons for Europe. Read it, I may come back on this at another time.

The Belgravia Dispatch (which, among blog names, ranks among the best in my book) also caught up with Zapatero's mini-summit in Madrid last week, on which we posted here. He ties it with Europe's reluctancy to pay on the debt owned to the United States for saving their Euro-butts time after time during the last 90 years, to close with a thought on the "states have no friends, they have interests" meme. Which goes both ways. Looking at Spain, my take is to close all bases here, especially the naval base at Rota. Replace it with one or two similar, but preferably smaller naval bases, one in Tunesia or Algeria and one in Morocco, in its Western Sahara territory.

Then, the Journal of ChuckB (Public Librarian #1, I imagine) has a doom-and-gloom post on Europe's economic prospects, and asks why the US would possibly want to look more like Europe. Why indeed?

Finally, some quickies (always good for the trackback visitors, hehe): Michelle Malkin tells us how to win a behind-the-scenes tour at CBS' 60 Minutes, the Eleven Day Empire hosts this week's Carnival of the Vanities, Outside the Beltway reports on constitutional gerrymandering in Colorado, and carries the Traffic Jam as always.

Time for Coffee!

New Blog: NetWar

I just came across a blog called NetWar (don't you love surfing off your site stats?), written (in English and Spanish) by a Spanish guy living in France. He's got some nice thoughts on Spain, worth a visit.

GSPC Activity Update

Recent reports suggest that Algeria's Al Qaeda-linked GSPC may be down, but definitely not out. UPI reports on a roadside attack last weekend, killing four, during which the terrorist commando took a woman hostage. This seems to be their MO nowadays, posing as soldiers manning road blocks. Note also that their terrorist acts are against Algerians, not just the Algerian government.

Meanwhile, an Algerian was arrested in Peshawar, Pakistan, on suspicion of belonging to Al Qaeda, and another Algerian, with the nom de guerre of Abu Musab, was arrested in Chechnya, reports ITAR-TASS.
Also an update on Algeria's government, which finds itself in the uncomfortable position of having to negotiate with Chad rebel group MDJT for the handover of Abdelzarrak Al Para (to the ire of Chad's government), with possible intervention from Germany (who also want Al Para, and have a history of paying in these affairs).

If you want to read more on the GSPC, try these search results for this blog.

by the way, in the same speech Zapatero mentioned Gibraltar:

I would not wish to conclude my statement without reference to Gibraltar. Every year the General Assembly reiterates its mandates urging Spain and the United Kingdom to pursue bilateral negotiations in order to reach a definitive solution to this dispute. I want to confirm here that my country will maintain its willingness to negotiate a solution that benefits the region as a whole, and to hear the voice of this non-autonomous territory.

Does this mean he's willing to let a referendum in Gibraltar settle the dispute?

Zapatero's World, Insha'allah

Late last night I saw some footage from Spain's Socialist Prime Minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, during his speech at the 59th UN General Assembly (or Assembly Of Generals, in reference to the many dictatorships holding equal votes as democracies).

I almost fell out of my chair. The integral text (pdf) of his speech can be found here. I've reprinted some excerpts below (emphasis mine):

...On Terrorism in Spain:
"I am speaking on behalf of a country that has had its share of difficult experiences throughout its history. A country in which still living generations have known a civil war, a dictatorship of almost four decades and a democracy that is now 25 years old. We have also experienced the scourge of terrorism for more than thirty years. Over the last thirty years we, Spanish women and men, have learned much about and from terrorism. We soon learned
about its iniquity. We have learned what it is about. We have learned how to defy it, how to withstand its blows with courage and dignity. We have learned how to fight it."

...On the Madrid attacks and subsequent Spanish response:
"Spanish women and men were not afraid. On the very next day after the bombings, millions of people left their homes, took to the streets and squares of the cities and towns of my country and, once again, we expressed our rejection and disgust, our unanimous contempt for terrorist brutality. From thirty years of terrorism we have learned that the risk of a terrorist victory rises sharply when, in order to fight terror, democracy betrays its fundamental nature, governments curtail civil liberties, put judicial guaranties at risk, or carry out pre-emptive military
operations. This is what our people have learned: that it is legality, democracy and political means and ways what makes us stronger and them weaker."

...On the 'root causes' meme:
"Nothing justifies terrorism. It is irrational, like the Black Death, but the roots of terrorism, like those of the plague, can and must be uncovered. We can and must
rationally analyse how it emerges, how it grows, so as to be able to fight it rationally. Terrorism is insanity and death and, regrettably, there will always be fanatics who are ready to kill to impose their insanity through force. Ready to disseminate the seed of evil. The seed of evil cannot take root when it falls on
the rock of justice, well-being, freedom and hope; but it can take root if it lands on the soil of injustice, poverty, humiliation and despair. Thus, redressing the major political and economic injustices that affect our world would deprive terrorists of their popular support. The more people there are who enjoy dignified conditions around the world, the safer we will all be."

...On Iraq and Spain's retreat:
"In this context, I would like to speak about Iraq. But above all I would like to speak about the thousands of victims of this conflict, about the Iraqis and about the
soldiers and civilians who lost their lives. We express our permanent solidarity to them and to their countries. The overwhelming majority of people in Spain spoke out
against the war. We were not persuaded by the reasons given by those who promoted the war. We expressed this view both at the Spanish Parliament and in the streets. We spoke out loudly, we shouted. We also said that winning the war would be much easier than winning the peace. Peace must be our endeavour. An endeavour that requires more courage, more determination and more heroism than the war itself. That is why the Spanish troops returned from Iraq."

...On the Alliance Of Civilizations:
"Peace and security will only spread over the world with the strength of international legality, with the strength of human rights, with the strength of democracy, of abidance by the law. With the strength of equality: equality between women and men, equal opportunities, no matter where people are born. With the strength of our rejection against those who manipulate or want to impose any kind of religion or belief. With the strength of education and culture: culture is always peace; let us ensure that our perception of others is coloured with respect. With the strength of dialogue among peoples. Thus, in my capacity as representative of a country created and enriched by divers cultures, before this Assembly I want to propose an Alliance of Civilizations between the Western and the Arab and Muslim worlds. Some years ago a wall collapsed. We must now prevent hatred and incomprehension from building a new wall. Spain wants to submit to the Secretary General, whose work at the head of this organisation we firmly support, the possibility of establishing a High Level Group to push forward this initiative."

On Spain's lessons from 'thirty years of terrorism' (interesting sidenote perhaps, Zapatero starts refering to ETA as terrorists from the death of dictator Franco onwards. ETA was founded in 1969. Does he think they were 'freedom fighters' or 'the resistance' before his death?), Zapatero mentions that Spain has learned that pre-emptive military operations have not worked. Excuse me? I was not aware that Spain even so much as carried out punitive military actions. Except perhaps he is comparing his Socialist predecessor's GAL death squads with the pre-emptive military operations of a democratic nation Like the United States of America? He would be saying the same as Spain's Attorney-General if he did imply that.

After that big slap in the face, there is more. Zapatero brings up Iraq and seeks to explain why Spain retreated in the face of a terrorist onslaught at home (something I'm sure will go down in history as The Big Frustration of this government). Basically, he says that because after the toppling of Saddam's regime, the hard part started, the going got tough, and Spain did not want any part of that. So it wasn't Al Qaeda, he's just a coward in general. And the quote on the peace being an endeavour which requires more courage, heroism even, than war itself. Doesn't that sound like "the peace of the brave"? I'm sure his Foreign Minister and Arafat-buddy Miguel Angel Moratinos was smiling contently when he said that.

Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Zapatero with some of his friends.

The biggest shocker to me, was his suggestion the UN create an 'Alliance of Civilizations', including the Western World and Arab and muslim nations. It is the clearest sign to me that Zapatero has absolutely no clue as to what the War On Islamic Terror is about. It is also a word for word repetition of Irani 'President' Khatami's 1997 call for dialogue with the West.

Zapatero fears that 'hatred and incomprehension' will cause a separation between the islamic Arab world and the West. But he's refering to 'hatred and incomprehension' coming from the West, not the hatred shown in New York, Bali, Istanbul, Casablanca, Ryaad, Madrid, Beslan. A hatred which is as much directed at our lifestyle as it is against the Arab dictatorships with whom Zapatero now wants to form an alliance.

The War on Islamic Terror is not about separating the West from the rest of the world, or 'minding the Gap' in the words of Thomas Barnett. It is about pulling these Arab nations into the fabric of globalization, interconnected economies and free flows of information and ideas. It is about pushing them to reform, while assisting them in the eradication, pre-emptively, of their terrorists. To form an alliance on equal footing with these dictatorships does nothing but sustain the status quo. In fact, it gives them, by siding with the oppressors, yet another tool with which to supress their own peoples and to push us for more concessions on Israel, through incitement of their own populations via mosques and media. Meanwhile feeding the real source of terrorism, not poverty, but Salafist Islam.

At best, I can see Zapatero's pro-Arab government angling for a key role in the UN's Mideast policies, hoping to continue the center stage role under the Aznar government, albeit with a different audience.

At worst, Zapatero is moving his country towards the Arab world, literally positioning itself on the bridge between the West and the Orient. Thoughts of Al Andalus will have passed through a lot of sick minds, yesterday.

The Barcelona Terrorist Cell That Wasn't

Where's the outrage? I read on Barcepundit (told you I was busy) that they have finally got around to watching the video tapes they found when arresting ten Pakistanis in Barcelona last week, who belonged to an Al Qaeda terrorist cell (which wasn't a terrorist cell at all, according to the press here, toting the government line, but rather 'organized delinquents' supporting radicals outside of Spain).

And what was on the tapes? Oh, just a one-hour video of Barcelona's Twin Towers.

I do not feel safe here.

It's been a couple of days since my last post, work's been killer --which is good-- but has the effect that blogging has suffered as a result.

I've been thinking a bit about the format of this blog, and what I would feel comfortable with. To me, there's two distinctions between blogs insofar as format is concerned, and that is the 'Pure Blog' and the 'OpEd blog'. A 'Pure Blog' to me is something akin National Review's The Corner, or Instapundit. Quick thoughts, with links and a thought to send somebody off to see what the blogger said was true, or connecting dots for the reader, but leaving to opiniating much more to the original writer to which the blogger refers.

'OpEd Blogs' on the other hand, take the opiniating much more into their own hands. Blogs like Belmont Club are a good example. Very good and lots of respect for these guys by the way, but also very time consuming.

And therein lies my problem, time. So I'm going to try out more rapid postings on interesting articles, still keeping an eye out for terrorism in Northern Africa, and still now and again a more elaborate post, but mainly quick lines and such. For now, we'll see how goes.

South Africa Recognizes Western Sahara

Something I noted earlier, but did not get to because of the El Pais scandal developing, was that earlier this week, South Africa unexpectedly decided to recognize Western Sahara as an independent state. I've written before on the importance of Morocco in the War on Islamic Terror, and South Africa's actions go contrary to my beliefs of bringing Western Sahara under Moroccan control, to ensure no new prospective failed states are created, at least for the time being, where GSPC or other Al Qaeda terrorist cells can find refuge and threaten both Algeria and Morocco from just across their borders. Rabat's denouncement was inmediate:

But Rabat condemned the decision as "partial, surprising and inopportune", and voiced its "disappointment with the new foreign policy of the South African government," in a statement issued by the Moroccan foreign ministry.

Morocco annexed the Western Sahara region in 1975, triggering a dispute with Algeria which backed the Polisario Front movement seeking independence for the territory bordering the Atlantic between Mauritania and Morocco.

South Africa has been a traditional backer of the Polisario Front, the armed wing of the Sahrawi republic, which has been recognized by the Organisation of African Unity -- now the African Union -- but not the United Nations.

The African National Congress (news - web sites) that swept to power in South Africa in 1994 has repeatedly pointed to the Western Sahara as the only region in Africa that had yet to be "liberated".

South African officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in Pretoria, said the decision to announce the formal recognition was prompted by the Western Sahara sending members to the opening of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) on Thursday.

With the renewed attention of the United Nations to find a solution to the Western Sahara issue, supported by Spain (which favors a five year 'trial independence' and a referendum on its future afterwards, along the lines of the Plan Baker-II, rejected by Morocco) South Africa, a long-time Polisario supporter, is trying to force a fait accompli by imposing its view of Western Sahara on the rest of the world.

UPDATE El Pais Ad Scandal: El Pais Apologizes!

Little Green Footballs, Powerline, get ready for Pequeños Balones Verdes and Cuerda De Corriente or whatever, the Spanish blogosphere rocks! El Pais today, in both its printed version and its online version, printed an apology for the sick ad they used in an email campaign to win a few new subscribers.

the El Pais apology this morning

The text of the apology, translated by myself into English, is as follows:

EL PAÍS apologizes for the use of the images of the terrorist attack against the Twin Towers in New York, which happend on September 11, 2001, for a campaign to aquire subscribers to ELPAIS.es. This regrettable campaign, carried out through emails, supported by two photos of New York, one with the Twin Towers and another one without, under the heading "You can do a lot in one day, imagine what can happen in three months". The promotional campaign started last Monday, September 13, and was sent to more than 50,000 recipients before it was cancelled, on Wednesday 15th.

EL PAÍS, its publisher and the Grupo Prisa profoundly regret the use of a tragedy, which in this case cost the lives of more than 2,700 persons, for publicity purposes. We would like to apologize for it to the victims and their families, to the citizens of New York who experienced that agression from up close, and to those who saw among their email this ominous message, and to all the readers of the newspaper.

Any explanation about the chain of errors which led to the launch of this campaign is insufficient, which some of our readers rightly qualified as repugnant. We share the disgust they have expressed in numerous messages and letters to the management and we are sorry it happened.

The Prisa Group has opened an internal investigation to clarify how it was decided to launch this promotional campaign and to take appropriate measures. Effective inmediately, it has ordered the company used to send out the emails that it mails all recipients of the campaign to apologize.

EL PAIS would like to express once more, like it has done in its 28 years and almost 10,000 editions, its solid solidarity with the victims of terrorism. Like said in EL PAÍS editorial on September 12, 2001, and we repeat it fully here again, those terrorist attacks touch all citizens of good will, without distinction of borders or continents, and constituted an attack "against those with whom we share the same democratic principles which in our country costed so dearly to attain".

The barbarian terrorist attacks which happened later in the rest of the world, among other places like Madrid, did nothing but confirm the necessity to act firmly and democratically before terrorism, which must exclude any irresponsible use of these events.

As apologies go, CBS might want to start taking notes. Apology accepted.

UPDATE: Barcepundit has more. Apparently El Pais received a lot of complaints, and not just them, Spanish embassies around the world too. Barcablog points to a post on Editorsweblog.org and WorldNetDaily who picked up the story as well.

Another blog, Pensamientos Radicalmente Eclécticos (in Spanish) claims I finally got my fifteen minutes of fame because of all this. I'd like to say to JR, thanks, but look around you, we all got a good look at what blogs, even in Spain with its famous 'you can't break through it' attitude, can do. Mind you, mentioning Investor Relations contact persons does help too. I'd like to say to all Spanish bloggers, the time of ranting is over, now starts a new chapter of blogging in Spain.

MORE UPDATES: Darleen was worried seeing the ad that Spain would fall into the Dar Al-Islam column before France would. I commented on her site with a couple of reasons why I think France will go first.

Welcome LGF visitors! Hope the site won't crash!

Here's a round up of some interesting bits from some other blogs. I'm updating this particular post as I go along, there's no particular order.

As a follow up to my post on Decision Making 2.0, HerbEly has some interesting thoughts and has written on how institutions are prone to deny warning signs of impending disaster. Also, be sure to check out this week's Carnival of the Vanities.

Frank at IMAO is promising us a link between the CBS scandal and the Kerry campaign today, so keep an eye out for that one. Michelle Malkin has a small summary of nasty things liberals do when they don't get their way. Ace of Spades HQ brings us the Top Ten Signs You're At An Iraqi Wedding, which is quite hilarious. On a sadder note, last night Rick James died, who will be missed by eighties kind of guys or girls everywhere.

Athena, an American studying in Amman, Jordania, is being served heeps of bull from her professors; she turns to her blog to spout and rant about them. We're rooting for you!

UPDATE: El Pais Ad Schandal

Some more developments on the scandal brewing (hey, it's my first scandal here) surrounding the utterly detestable use of 9/11 imagery in an online ad for Spanish newspaper El Pais.

After initial denials, claiming it was a hoax etc., El Pais now seems (though I have not seen any statement by them, email or otherwise) to neither deny nor confirm that the ad eminated from them.

The online marketing company (we call those Spammers) Canalmail however, has supposedly confirmed that they have mailed out the ads.

Barcepundit has checked it all out, and has more indepth information:

Canalmail has confirmed that it is a genuine campaing for El Pais. The newspaper still hasn't made public its statement about this issue, but these sources say that after flatly denying the veracity of the advertisement, now they "do not deny nor confirm". Like I said, this is more and more Rathergate-ish by the day.

Go Barcepundit! Just get us some tangible stuff, ie Canalmail corroboration, the El Pais denial nor confirmation. Then we need to move for an apology (hehe, again through spam) to all receivers of the insulting email.

Cuba Libre

Much attention yesterday regarding former Prime Minister José Maria Aznar was diverted to the decision by the parliamentary committee investigating the March 11 attacks in Madrid to have Aznar testify.

Meanwhile, Aznar was giving a speech on human rights and Cuba. The transcript is in Spanish, I've taken out some passages I found interesting, and translated them.

...On Cuba's political prisoners:
Today we are meeting to demand of the Cuban government that they release their prisoners of conscience.

There are at least 84 political prisoners on the island, according to human rights organizations. Perhaps the low number comes as a surprise to some of you. Without a doubt there are many more, but in any case it's the highest number in the world, relative to its population.

Just one political prisoner should already be intolerable. No one should be imprisoned for peacefully expressing his ideas. No one should be sentenced without a fair and impartial trial.

...On Raúl Rivero, political prisoner:
Raúl Rivero, poet and journalist was one of the signers of the letter sent by various Cuban intellectuals to their government in 1991. In it, they asked for democratic reforms. To sign it, meant breaking the official silence in his country. A country where what is not official, is clandestine.

In 1995 he founded the press agency CubaPress, to give the world an indepent version of what was happening in his country.

That decision also had its consequences. He was detained on several occasions, on top of being subjected to other restrictive measures.

On March 20, 2003, he was detained again, together with 74 other people. Just 17 days later he was convicted to 20 years in prison, on counts of "treason of the country". Today he is being held in a high security prison, under inadmissible conditions and contrary to all international treaties. His wife Blanca Reyes bravely and permanently keeps the thought of her husband with her.

Without a doubt the voice of Raúl Rivero was bothering the Cuban government. Without a doubt also, he is in prison for speaking publicly in favor of democracy and freedoms in his country. He is living proof that he was right in asking of his country, that what is normal in so many others. Amongst them, ours.

...On Europe vis a vis Cuba, refering to the fall of the Berlin Wall:
Unfortunately, not all similar tyrannies fell. Some continue still, oppressing millions of people. And they continue to do so with the consent up to the applauding of people living in democratic and open societies, who would be incapable of tolerating a dictatorship in their own countries.

I would ask them to be consistent. That they defend for Cuba the same they defend for Europe. That they denounce any violation of fundamental right with the same emphasis, wherever it happens.

Freedom of mind is a universal value. It cannot be confined solely to some countries, instead it must be defended all over the world. Calls for respect of cultural traditions do not apply. No one can justify the execution or the imprisonment of those who express their ideas or those who criticize their government.

Without a doubt it is easier to criticize democratic governments. It involves less risk. Denouncing totalitarian governments can carry a high price. But still there are those who prefer to risk their liberty and their lives to do so.

His speech was given at the presentation of the manifesto "For the freedom of prisoners of conscience in Cuba". Both the speech and the manifesto can be found in Word .doc format on the FAES website, where you can also sign the manifest, unfortunately not online, but through emailing your personal details. Hopefully they can figure out a way to make it easier for people to sign. It's also in Spanish.

Last year, the European Union imposed 'diplomatic' sanctions on Cuba, as a direct result of the arrest of the 75 political activists of which Aznar spoke (although curiously, the EU's condemnation focused more on the execution of three Cubans fleeing Castro's island prison, think about that one for a minute). Sanctions that socialist Foreign Minister-and-Arafat's-buddy Miguel Angel Moratinos now wants to lift (link in Spanish), in order to 'improve' relations with Cuba.

A bit like Zapatero's call to all countries with troops in Iraq to follow Spain's lead, to 'improve Iraq's prospects'. For whom?

As a side note, did you know that Cuba's ambassador to Spain is the revered (revered!) author and niece of Chili's Salvador Allende, Isabel Allende?

To close with a more positive note, and to show everyone that not all Europeans (and lest you forget, half of Spain is bitterly opposed to these Socialist morons in government as well), take a look at the Czechs, who have one of the most anti-Castro policies in Europe:

The United States government has competition when it comes to exporting democracy.

Those not familiar with the special ties between the newly freed and the still-oppressed might be surprised to learn that the Czech Republic is the European nation most devoted to the liberation of Cuba, the only dictatorship left in Latin America.

"'So why Cuba?' That is the question we are always asked. The answer is Vaclav Havel," said Gabriela Dlouha, head of the newly created Transition Promotion unit at the Foreign Ministry. Dlouha's office aids democracy movements in Cuba, Belarus and Myanmar (formerly Burma) and also works with the governments of countries such as Ukraine and Moldova that are still struggling to implement democracy.

"After the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel was an icon. The people in opposition in Cuba asked him to be their advocate. They asked him to ask other countries to support them. And that is still our moral obligation," said Dlouha, a former press officer for Havel, who served as president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic from 1990 to 2003.

Read it all, it shows there is hope for Cuba, and Europe, still.

'El Pais' Ad Trashes Memory Of 9/11

Thanks to BarcaBlog and Barcepundit, Arcadi Espada brings us this piece of filth in the form of an ad for the online version of El Pais:

Translation:
"You can do a lot in one single day; just imagine what can happen in three months"

I honestly do not know what to say anymore. How low can they possibly go? As Barcapundit explains, El Pais is part of a publisher called Grupo Prisa:

This is an email advertisement for the online version of El Pais, Spain's main newspaper which belongs to the PRISA group, the pro-Socialist media organization that, together with its sister SER radio network, was behind the agit-prop campaign after the March 11 bombings.

UPDATE 09/16/04: It appears that El Pais first said is was a fake advertisement, to later reverse themselves, saying they do not confirm nor deny that the ad eminated from them. Looks like they're cowards, on top of being insensitive jerks. Meanwhile, Allah Pundit and You, Bitch come up with creative ads of their own, using images of the March 11 attacks instead.

UPDATE II: If anyone wants to let El Pais know what they think of this, or their parent company Grupo Prisa, then here's some useful info for you:

SINCE DELETED

UPDATE III: Advertising and media blog Adrants agrees.

UPDATE IV: Barcepundit is refuting El Pais' claim that the ad is a hoax. I've tried it, and I'd say he's right. Now how to keep the pressure up on El Pais and have them release a statement? Other newspapers? Grupo Prisa?

UPDATE V 09/17/04: I have deleted Grupo Prisa and El Pais contact details, as El Pais and Grupo Prisa have issued an apology in their print and online versions of the newspaper, thanks to all readers who complained.

Syrian Chem Weapons In Darfur: Translation WELT Article

Below is my translation of the original article, as it appeared today in Die Welt newspaper:

Intelligence Agencies: Thousands Offered

by Jacques Schuster

Berlin - In June of this year, Syrian special forces used chemical weapons against the people of Darfur. This action, which killed thousands of people, was in concordance with the Sudan government. This conclusion is drawn by western intelligence agencies. They were supported by eye witness accounts, which came out through various Arab media.


According to documents of western intelligence agencies, in posession by WELT, Syrian officers met with representatives of the Sudanese army in a Khartoum suburb in May of this year. During the meetings they dealt with the question how to expand military cooperation. According to intelligence reports, the Syrian delegation offered a closer cooperation in the field of chemical warfare. With that, according to the sources, it was suggested to test the effects of chemical agents on the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Because Khartoum was in the middle of peace negotiations with the rebels in May, the Sudanese delegation suggested to test in on the native African population. Upon which at least five airplanes from Syrian Arab Airlines flew from Damascus to Khartoum, with specialists on board from the Syrian institute for chemical warfare, along with technical equipment.

Exactly when the deployment started in Darfur, cannot be said with certainty. In any case, Sudanese eye witnesses give their account of strange going-ons in the Khartoum Al-Fashr hospital, in an article on the Arab website "Ilaf" from August 2. In June, out of nowhere thousandsof frozen bodies were brought to the hospital. They noted the strange wounds all over the bodies. A little while later, Sudanese soldiers supposedly closed off one of the wings in the building. Believing the witnesses, access afterwards was limited to an unknown team of Syrian doctors. Days after, Sudanes workers had disposed of the bodies.

For some time now, military experts have information on a Sudanes-Syrian joint effort in the field of chemical weapon research. Also, again and again reports from Syrian dissidents would come out, which would speak of the use of chemical weapons on prisoners.

Article published on Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Astonishing. If this pans out, then the Syrians are planning for more, because this will invite an attack on the country.

Rathergate: Decision Making 2.0?

Trent Telenko of Winds of Change has an interesting post on what he calls 'the group effect', or 'Swarm' as Hugh Hewitt refers to it: the rewarding of content over the position of the speaker, something the blogosphere is famous for. Pajamabloggers or not, little attention is paid to status of the author (in fact, in many cases this is not even known), whether on the subject or otherwise, and authors need to defend against any and every comment thrown their way. The beauty is that the commenters are commenting on each other's comments as well, preventing that an author needs to fend off literally every comment made. It's not a new thing, either, although the blogosphere, internet proliferation have put it in the spotlight:

I have seen it operate repeatedly before.

I first saw it on the old GENIE Military Affairs Round Table over 14 years ago in the run up to and aftermath of the first Iraqi-American war. Then much later and repeatedly over on FreeRepublic.com on a number of issues, but most spectacularly in a long thread analyzing the Columbia Disaster (Note the link is to 3000 graphically intensive posts -- broadband only use is highly recommended) that reached the same conclusion NASA did months later on the causes of the shuttle break up.

This is a radically egalitarian cultural development that is highly subversive of elitist hierarchies everywhere.

We are seeing the precursors perhaps to a new type of decision-making process, which could find its way into large corporations, the intelligence community and other large organizations which benefit of having a lot of employees or stakeholders ('commenters') and leaders who need to make sure that they take the best decision, and often fast.

Imagine a private network, linking friendly intelligence agencies throughout the world, giving access to all agents above a certain classification level on 'threads', or decisions on intel or threat assessment. Because of the nature of intelligence, and the (warranted or not) famous unwillingness of sharing between agencies, its purpose could probably be best served in the lower levels, the political or country analysts. Assessments on a political crisis somewhere in the world could be brought by an 'author', the analyst ordered to prepare the report, to the group, open for comment by the group, forcing him to adjust, change and adopt comments brought to him, filtered by other members of the group. Rather than depending on the document prepared by one analyst or group of analysts within the same agency, and vetted by one or multiple superiors, also within the same agency, a document on which decisions could be based prepared in effect by hundreds if not thousands of analysts within the same agency and other agencies could be used to base decisions on.

The same could apply to a large corporation, with offices around the world. If a director at the corporate level would need to make a decision on a particular investment, instead of asking his usual circle of board advisors would post the proposed investment on an internal website, asking anyone from the mail clerk and his secretary to his director of finance and shareholders to shoot at it (and be shot at), then odds are that a very good decision will be reached, at a fraction of the time needed in the old decision making process.

Two comments on this, first is that the mail clerk who is taking a business course at night, will be very eager to profess his skills, and will be given the chance to compete head on with his boss's boss, and be noted, thus good for his career. Because he will be burnt down in real-time if he makes a dumb remark (and not, like in the old ways, 'because he is the mail clerk'), he will make sure that what he says, sticks. This will be the incentive for the bottom layers to take part and show what they're worth. Another incentive is that once a decision has been reached this way, no grudges can be held against anyone if the decision does not pan out. It was a group decision, and everyone had a chance to contribute to it.

The second comment is the one that will put us back with our feet on the ground again, and that is culture. Knowledge is Power, and is inheritently connected to humans in general, and decision makers in particular. See Dan Rather. If Pajama Bloggers are able to utterly destroy a newscast, then what's the value of the newscast? So if I share, what's in it for me? True enough. To return to the corporate setting again, the role of a decision maker like a corporate director would change under this regime, but not entirely. Rather than being decision makers, the focus would turn to decision 'thinking' for lack of a better word. The investment decision in the example above did come up because of an opportunity, a threat or whatever. A group is good at vetting decisions, but lacks in strenght to formulate a direction without leadership. So future decision makers, be it in corporations, the military or the intelligence community, might not so much be in charge of making the decisions, as they are in charge of thinking of decisions to be made.

UPDATE: Barcelona Terror Raids

Just reading on the El Mundo site (in Spanish), that during house searches today in Barcelona they found literature related to Osama Bin Laden, other religious materials, video tapes which they have not studied yet, false identity papers and large amounts of other documents.

However, police is adamant in downplaying the whole matter, now even referring to the ten arrested Pakistanis as "organized delinquency" --which would be to laugh at were it not that serious. They persist in conveying the message that this was not, repeat not an Al Qaeda cell, instead calling them organized delinquents who they are investigating for their possible support of 'radical' groups outside of Spain.

Spain, take note. Terrorists are now 'delinquents' or 'radicals' but definitely NOT Al Qaeda.

God forbid to think that Spain was an actual target. And meanwhile, Spain is setting itself up for another attack:

Meanwhile, yesterday I saw that Minister of Retreat Defense, José Bono explain on TeleMadrid that the troops currently being deployed in Afghanistan will only use a minimum of force to protect their own troops, and nothing else. Gee, I thought they were protecting the Afghan people, ensuring they could vote in peace? Also, Bono reiterated again that come what may, no later than 90 days after the deployment has been finalized, the troops will come home.

Look for a new attack, on Spanish troops in Afghanistan or in Spain, some ten, fifteen days before that date. In which case Bono would either have to reverse himself and stay and deploy more, or stay with the 'consistency' argument his government has used for the Iraq retreat as well (an 'election promise', unrelated to the Madrid attacks) and retreat, again, allowing yet another victory to the terrorists.

So inviting terrorism on the one hand, while denying to the public that there is terrorist activity going on. What kind of a government is that?

Live Group Blogging Presidential Elections?

Here's just a household message, I'm trying to get in touch with Madrid area bloggers (you know who you are) to see if we can get together during the US Presidential Elections and do some live blogging if possible. I got the idea through North Sea Diaries.

Ideally, we'd need a setup with a) a satellite dish, receiving CNN and Fox (all you folks outside of Europe, don't laugh) and preferably hookups for laptops, desktops whatever, and oh yeah, internet access. Maybe a hotel with wifi would be a good idea? Have the US Embassy sponsor it? Or Halliburton?

In any case, if you'd like to find out if we can do something, drop me a line at the contact address (right bar), and we'll see what we can do!

Maybe good tip for all you Barcelona bloggers, too!

=================

Ahora un mensaje en español, algo que me cuesta en hacer todavía, entonces no comentario sobre mi uso de la lengua de Cervantes, por favor.

Quiro ver que si hay interés entre los bloggers españoles de la región de Madrid, para juntarnos la noche del 2 de noviembre, para ver y hablar de los elecciones estadounidenses, pero sobre todo para ver que si podemos hacer algo de blogging en directo. La idea no es mia, es de North Sea Diaries.

Idealmente, necesitamos algún lugar con televisión de satelite, con CNN y Fox preferible, aceso al internet para más que un ordenador y cables de LAN etc. Supongo que un hotel con wifi será lo mejor, pero no tengo ni idea, tampoco si queremos gastar dinero etc. Patrocinado por la embajada de Estados Unidos o Halliburton será la hostia, claro.

Entonces, si te apetece, si tienes sugerencias, contactame por email (está en la barra derecha) y veremos que podemos hacer.

Y también, todos los bloggers de Barcalona, será una idea para vosotros también!

It's Over: Bush By Landslide

if the Iowa Electronic Market is any reference (and over the past cycles it has proven to be more accurate than any polls), it's a done deal looking at the popular vote. Current Quotes are Kerry $0.425 and Bush $0.574. This is no bounce, this is a lift off.

Suppose the DNC will forego Kerry, focusing instead on candidates like Daschle instead?

Allah Pundit has some more updates on Ra^thergate, courtesy of Beltway.

UPDATE: Supposedly, CBS is coming out midday EST with an announcement on the matter, writes Backcountry Conservative.

Barcelona Police Arrest 10 in Anti-Terror Raids

All major news outlets today report on a number of anti-terrorist raids being carried out by Barcelona police. It started before dawn, with searches of several houses and shops. At this moment ten confirmed arrests have been made on grounds of suspicion of ties with Islamic terror networks. Most of the arrested have the Pakistani nationality. The arrests are the result of an investigation which is not related to the March 11 attacks.

As of this moment, no explosives or arms have been discovered, although the police has confisquated documents. As this is developing, we will update as more news becomes available.

UPDATE: El Mundo (link in Spanish) has another report, and quotes Barcelona police who insist that they are dealing with "organized crime" and they are studying documents found, looking for any "support that they, at any certain moment, might have given to some small radical group outside of Spain".

How's that for downplaying? They further insist that "we are not talking about Islamic terrorism" but about "a support group for radicals outside of Spain", they emphasized. "At no moment are we talking about an Al Qaeda cell", they added.

Right. Pakistani criminals supporting 'radicals' outside of Spain. And please don't print Al Qaeda.

Yep. And Al Qaeda attacked Spain because of its presence in Iraq, if you're name is Zapatero.

In my opinion the government is playing with fire here, giving the 'All Clear' in public, insisting that the threat is over, while secretively hunting for terrorist cells. Without the public fully aware of the presence of more cells, entailing a clear and present threat, they are guilty of sacrificing the public at a next attack in case they fail to prevent it.

Madrid Attacks Pictures Released

CNN (thanks to Barcepundit) posted six still images on its website, taken by security cameras at the time of the Madrid attacks at the Atocha train station. The gallery can be found here.

These images were never seen before, and looking at a step by step of the carnage makes me want to throw up. Or cry. Or both.

Bastards.

If you're looking to kill a lost half hour, go over to the Zoo's Political Compass Project, which asks bloggers to take a test and be plotted on a graph, so people can inmediately see where you stand.

We scored a healthy Economic Left/Right: 7.50 with a Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.13, which, looking at some more interesting people puts me right there with Milton Friedman. We're honored.

Among the present blogs listed, we seem to occupy a niche of our own, with the Pearly Gates blog approaching us closest on economics, though we are a bit more libertarian on the social side. Oh. I just saw that the Pearly Gates is dedicated to baseball, and the Angels no less. Well, at least he's honest about it. He does support George Bush though ;)

Go Yankees!

Europe's Disconnect With Terrorism

Outside The Beltway notes this article in the Chicago Sun-Times, on Europe's failure to grasp the scope of Islamic Terrorism:

Within that general objective, they have a more specific agenda. Sometimes that agenda is a mirror image of what the West wants -- such as proudly wearing Islamic symbols in French schools. On other occasions, it is something entirely mysterious to us -- such as restoring East Timor to the House of Islam. But it is an extremely ambitious agenda that includes regaining those parts of Europe -- including Spain, Austria and Eastern Europe -- that used to be ruled either by the Moors or the Ottoman Empire.

Most of Europe still clings to the Pilger view. As last week's poll for the German Marshall Fund demonstrated, Europeans are more likely to regard Islamist terrorism as something that the United States invited by such actions as the war on Iraq and less likely to approve of independent and preemptive retaliatory force unless the U.N. OKs it. (Interestingly, the views of most Europeans closely mirrored those of Democrats in the United States.)

But this balance of opinion is likely to change as events like Beslan continue to occur. We are at the start of a long war against revolutionary Islamist terrorism -- a war akin to those against the French Revolution and against Nazism.

At the start of all such wars those who advocate strong forceful resistance to the revolutionaries -- men such as Burke and Churchill -- are seen as extreme, unreasonable and too violent in their proposed solutions. Most politicians believe that the revolution can be appeased or that the revolutionaries can be directed to other nations and their own spared.

But the Burkes and Churchills gradually convert others to their point of view when it becomes clear that the aims of the revolutionaries are essentially limitless, that they can be diverted only temporarily, and that nations under attack must therefore hang together or hang separately. Americans learned this lesson early because Sept. 11 was plainly directed at them. Europeans will learn it in the future as it becomes clear that Sept. 11 was the first installment of an attack on the entire West.

I have said it many times on this blog here, Spain's Socialist party's idea of the March 11 attack as a reprisal of its support for the United States, and its subsequent return to normality (skipping over the foiled attack on the country's high speed train link between Madrid in Sevill, after Zapatero won the elections and announced the retreat from Iraq), is leaving us here in Spain unprepared for the next attack.

WMD vs. Forged Docs

National Review's The Corner has an interesting analogy. Posts Jonah Goldberg:

WMDs V. FORGED DOCS [Jonah Goldberg]

A reader takes my comparison of Bush's stance on WMDs to Rather's on the memos even further:

Imagine this press conference: GW Bush: "We found WMD in Iraq. All of our critics have been completely discredited" Media: Can we see them? GW - No. you'll just have to take my word for it. We have experts to prove their authenticity. Media: Can we talk to the experts? Can we interview the people who found the weapons? Gw: NO. And the mere fact that you are asking these questions proves that you are partisan rumor mongers. End of story. case closed.

Very true.

However, in all fairness, you could turn this argument around. People trying to stick this to Dan Rather could be confronted with an argument that he 'based his report on faulty intelligence', and walk away. Hmm?

Daniel Pipes has an excellent article over at FrontPage magazine, on Nepalese and French reactions to their nationals being taken hostage in Iraq. Where the Nepalese rioted against mosques in Katmandu, the French handed over their foreign policy to institutions representing muslims in France, while calling in favors with Arab states for their anti-Israel stance, and accepting support offered by terrorist organizations like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad:

These efforts culminated thirty years of French appeasement and, in the scathing analysis of Norbert Lipszyc, “constituted a major victory for Islamists and terrorists.” Lipszyc sees France acting like a dhimmi (a Christian or Jew who accepts Muslim sovereignty and in return is tolerated and protected). “France has publicly confirmed that its dhimmi status, its readiness to submit to Islamist overlords. In return, these have declared that France, dhimmi that it is, deserves protection from terrorist acts.”

If the hostages are released, the policy of appeasement at home and abroad will seemingly have been vindicated. But at what a price! As Tony Parkinson writes in Melbourne’s Age newspaper, “No democracy should have to jump through these hoops to keep innocent people alive.” And jumping those hoops has deep implications.

He rightfully concludes to say that through both countries' actions, Nepal is less likely to again become the target of attacks or kidnappings, while France is.

Polish Opposition Says It Like It Is

This from AFP, via Jihad Watch:

WARSAW, Sept 13 (AFP) - If Poland decides to withdraw its troops from Iraq it will appear to be surrendering to terrorists, Poland's largest opposition party, which tops the country's popularity polls, said on Monday.

"To decide to stop participating in a war because there are casualties means, de facto, surrendering," Donald Tusk, head of the liberal Civic Platform party, told public radio a day after three Polish soldiers were killed in an attack south of Baghdad.

His comments came on the same day Iraq's interim President Ghazi Al-Yawar arrived in Warsaw for an official visit.

"The idea is to withdraw the Polish troops from Iraq in agreement with other allies so as not to give the impression that the Poles are surrendering to terrorism as the Spaniards did" last spring, said Tusk, who is considered a potential presidential candidate for the elections set for the end of 2005.

Well, if that is Poland's opposition, it shows that New Europe is always better than Refurbished Europe!

Russia's Centralist Measures

In the wake of the Beslan massacre, President Vladimir Putin announced a number of measures which, at best can be seen as anti-federalist, and at worst anti-democratic. Joe Gandelman over at The Moderate Voice has a good summary and is clearly warned by the developments in Moscow.

It's often said that one key goal of many terrorist and separatist groups is to radicalize the population by creating a government clampdown. The clampdown creates more anti-government outrage and helps recruit angry young militants to the cause.

Therein lies the danger for Vladimir Putin, as a few pieces of Russia's young democracy die.

I agree to a point. With politically motivated insurgencies aimed at overthrowing a government (elected or otherwise) this is a correct assumption, driving a wedge between the State and its citizens by eliciting a clampdown on all citizen liberties, afterwards seeking to blame the 'repressive' State and garner support for the insurgency. However, this usually works best in a dictatorship, with the insurgents' attention focused on attacking the State's infrastructure, while avoiding capture. This will make the State move towards treating all its citizens as suspect, curtailing liberties along the way, in an effort to sift out the insurgents. Who then can claim 'You see?'

In the case of Russia, you have a federalist society which is learning democracy, a slow process (and living in Spain, which changed from dictatorship to democracy in 1977, I can attest to this). It is a classic recipe for problems, when constituents in part of the federacy feel that other federal states are directly harming their interests, causing them to lose interest in the federal structure or to seek separation.

As a side note, I sometimes think that countries that have just exited a dictatorship, during which usually regional identities have been repressed, much like in the Soviet Union or in Francoist Spain, are best of to start with a central government, out of which a federalist project should be formed. To start directly with a federation can cause an 'overload' of nationalist sentiments followed by demands of high autonomy, which can turn into a competition between the federal republics with the State, or amongst themselves. To start off with a centralized model can dampen the separatist expectations, let democratic values take root and then move towards a federalist state (at which point the federalist states should be free to choose to stay or opt for independence). The problem of course is twofold; that normally, in the euphoria of the dictator gone and repressed groups free, people do not wish to wait any longer, partly out of fear of what this State will do to them. Incidentally, this same thing led in Spain to Basque separatist party Batasuna, 'political' wing of terrorist organization ETA, to be included in the democratic process, only to be forbidden for its support of terrorism earlier this year. A party which never should have been included in the first place, but alas, the beginnings of democracy are like a drug. The other problem with starting of 'centralist' and move towards a federation, is that usually, what is centralized, stays centralized.

Russia's enemy, Islamist Chechens supported by Al Qaeda, has not so much an argument against the government of Russia or Chechnya, but against Russian society as a whole, in what they deem as lands of Islam, the Caucasus. The atrocities committed in Beslan (no coincedence that North Osetia is predominantly Christian, the exception in the region) were the last in a series of attacks directed at Russians, from Moscow to the Caucasus region itself. They have made no distinction in their objects, from government buildings to army bases to theaters in Moscow, subways, hospitals and now a school.

Their enemy is anyone not like them.

Russia has problems with its republics, and these problems stem from the Federalist structure within the geographic realms of the old Soviet Union, at least where attainable (multiple republics separated themselves from the CIS), where federalism was introduced only to ensure avoiding the entire breakup of the country. It needs to address the problems with its republics, and it might very well be that a centralized model could be better. Taking away powers from republics that do not seem capable of protecting their own people or promoting freedom, could be a good thing. The problem with that, however, is that Putin is no stranger to anti-democratic sentiments himself, and the question would be if he would be the right man to lead such a project.

To return to Gandelman's point, that by 'clamping down' on federalism in its republics, Putin would be somehow feeding the monster, I don't think that the Chechen Islamists or Al Qaeda will get one more recruit out of these measures. Ordinary Russians know this Islamic threat will not stop by giving independence to Chechnya, or by pulling out Russian troops even.

That would truly feed the monster, something the young democrats of Spain have not learned yet.

UPDATE 09/15/04: Nathan over at The Argus has a good piece on it.

Axis Of Weasels: Old Europe Is Like New Again

Zapatero's mini summit in Madrid yesterday, where he met with Axis of Weasels chairman 'Blaque' Jacques Chirac and honorary member Chancellor Schroeder of Germany, provided yet another embarrasing moment for freedom loving Spaniards everywhere, for a number of reasons. First, Zapatero could not resist to euphorically call out that "Old Europe is like new again" (I'm sure Blaque Jacques liked hearing that description again).

"Hold me! I'm scared!"

The Axis is also famous within Europe for its love for dividing the spoils of the European Union among themselves, as the three are the main beneficiaries of EU subsidies. A point of discussion for Zapatero, who according to true Marxist common wisdom wanted to assure that Spain's subsidies are safe and maintained at the same levels for at least the next ten years, even though with the recent expansion there are a lot more needy countries trying to reform their economies. We're all equal, but some are more equal than others.

An informant of ours, who works at the Foreign Ministry in The Hague tells us that all this does not go down well with the current EU's chairman, the Netherlands. We saw a funny remark in an internal report on the meeting here, which listed all the possible subjects the three might talk about, but that Zapatero's 'monolinguistic limitations' would probably call for the need to prioritize, due to the word-for-word translations. Apart from Spanish, Mr. Zapatero speaks no other languages, although if you would count Spain's other official languages, he just might. As a side note, rather than learn to speak English, his government yesterday formally applied with the EU that Valencian, Basque and Catalan are adopted as official languages within the EU bureaucracy. Brussels will reach a point where there will be more translators than members of parliament present at its sessions.

Zapatero was careful not to repeat his earlier statements on how Iraq would have a better future, if all countries with troops on the ground would follow Spain's lead and pull out. Statements upon the Foreign Minister inmediately had to dispatch its number two to the American Embassy, which called for an explanation. Zapatero is already back-peddling on them, saying now that they were just some 'critical thoughts' (link in Spanish). For which he happened to choose a joint press conference with the president of Tunisia. Thoughts, I might add, one day before the 9/11 commemoration, and on the same day Iraqi hostage takers called again on Italy to pull out its troops, or its hostages would be killed.

But the main point of this post is that, though Zapatero is anxious to show itself back into the columns of 'Old Europe', truth is that his new friends carry little weight in the world nowadays. With Russia's departure of the Axis, although for now on issues like preventive strikes at terrorists everywhere, its stance on Iran and Iraq have not changed yet, and a lame duck Schroeder who is likely to be replaced by a pro-American Chancellor in 2006. Which leaves France on which Zapatero has pinned all his hopes. But history has shown that France as an ally can not be relied upon.

To stay with the Chuck Jones dig at Chirac, "La France? She change her mààind"

STG: Brent Woodall Foundation

Recently our blog joined the Strengthen The Good network, set up by Alan from the Command Post. Its aim is simple: "raise awareness of “micro charities”—charitable opportunities that are simple, personal, non-bureaucratic, and inspiring. Charitable opportunities where someone can feel great about giving $1, or even just from reading the story of the charity, it’s sponsors, and it’s beneficiaries."

The second micro charity STG supports is linked to 9/11. Writes Alan:

I read recently, in the somber flurry of September 11 memorial writing, that September 11 was unique because it reversed the typical order of tragedy in war: rather than it being the parents who sent their children off to face an uncertain fate, on 9/11 it was the children who sent off their parents.

One of those children, though not yet born at the time, was Pierce Woodall, daughter of Brent and Tracy Woodall. Tracy was five weeks pregnant on 9.11.01, when she and her unborn child sent Brent, a stock trader, off to work at Bruyette and Woods on the 89th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center.

Tracy was among the thousands of loved ones who had the bittersweet experience of receiving a phone call from WTC that September morning, as Brent called to let her know all was well in his tower. This was to change, however, when the second plane hit.

Tracy finally reached Brent on the 87th floor of the South Tower, where he had reached a locked door. Brent--6-foot-5, handsome, a college athlete at Berkeley and former minor league pitcher for the Cubs--assured his wife of 31 that everything would be all right.

And like so many people that bright clear day, that call was the last time Tracy heard her husband's voice.

Since that day, much has changed.

On April 22nd 2002, Tracy gave birth to Pierce Ashley Woodall.

She moved back to her home state of Texas to be near family.

And she refused to be ruled by her grief.

Tracy Woodall understood that a sound response to evil is to strengthen that which is good.

Not long before 9/11, Tracy and Brent had started talking about launching a foundation that would provide free care-giving education to families of children with autism. For the less familiar, autism is a neurological disorder that appears during the first three years of life. Estimates are that it occurs in approximately 2 to 6 in 1,000 individuals, and typical characteristics include problems with social relationships and emotional communication.

Please go over to the Strenghten The Good website or to the Brent Woodall Foundation's site to learn more about the work Tracy has been doing in honor of her late husband, and donate whatever you can miss. As the latter at this moment is not able to accept donations online, this can be done through the STG site (more details there). In any case, spread the word so they get all the attention they deserve.

If you have a blog, consider linking to this post or to the STG network. Or better yet, spend thirty minutes every couple of weeks in helping out as well!

The Public Be Fooled

In another show of old-school Socialism creeping through the veins of members of Spain's government, La Mano Invisible has dug up this jewel printed in La Semana Digital, (both in Spanish). I'm not going to add any comments, instead I will just translate it for you all to read. If anybody out there studied public relations, and you'd be of good will towards Socialism in the 21st Century ('They MUST have learned something in 100 years, right?'), then this would be classic Phineas Taylor Barnum's famous "Let the public be fooled", one of three precursors to public relations as a tool for corporate communications (for those interested, followed by William Vanderbilt's defiant "The public be damned" stance, to end with the pioneer of modern day PR Ivy Lee, who concluded, "The public be informed". And that was about 1906. Highlights are mine, like the translation:

AMAZEMENT AT PRESIDENT'S MEASURE
Zapatero vetoes publicity in digital media
The head of the government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has ordered that independent digital media not be included in institutional publicity campaigns.

September 13. During his last term in the opposition, the secretary-general of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party --Ed.) in Ferraz (street where PSOE headquarters are located --Ed.) showed his open disgust at the liberty taken by independent digital media. Back then already he predicted that if he would get to the Moncloa (PM's residence --Ed.) he would take measures he would see fit.

Something that was perceived back then by his team of advisers as a reaction to some hostile publicity, has converted into a personal decision which by no means carries unanimous support within the Moncloa. Important voices have advised him that it "is a profound contradiction" that the PSOE would inform the public through its own digital media, and would not accept the existence of media it could not control. These voices have indicated that this is an attack on the freedom of expression which will have consequences.

Facing these criticisms, the secretary of State for Communication, Miguel Barroso, supported the President's decision. Barroso maintains the thought that one must work with printed media which can be controlled, know the article's authors and excercise pressure through their editors. "Only in print media," he continues, "you can be informed beforehand of news that will be published and avoid that it reaches the hands of its readers". Out of the Moncloa, certain press chiefs at their departments have been ordered not to answer the phone when digital media ask for information.

However, in this debate, in which the head of government is irritated to such levels, the majority belongs to those, both in Moncloa as in Ferraz, who ask him to change his attitude. "If the PSOE isolates itself from new technologies," they insist, "it will pay for it. The answer to the critics is not to kill the messenger by suffocating its economic sources, but to maintain a policy of bigger involvement with these new media."

UPDATE: Marzo pointed out to me that Ferraz referred to the street in Madrid where PSOE headquarters are located, and not the town. Since adjusted.

More Document Fun

The Politbureau Diktat unearthed this one, pertaining to John Kerry!

UPDATE: Wizbang has a funny one, too.

UPDATE 2: Seriously again, Jay Currie's Tech Central Station's column asks some good questions in on the next steps in the 60 Minutes debacle. And it's all going at light speed, it's truly incredible to see unfolding.

Zapatero's Peace In Our Time

We mentioned before that Spain Will Have A Plan Soon on foreign policy focusing on the fight (although with this guy, you can't really seriously call it a fight anymore) against Islamist Terrorism, but we never imagined that it would be this stupid.

Zapatero's plan for Peace In Our Time

We noted it earlier today, Barcepundit has (just a tiny) bit more on it, and stole the picture from Allah. In true Spanish form, if Barcepundit does it first, then we can do it too!

American Hero: James Cason

The Associated Press reports on the head of the US Interest Section (for lack of an embassy) in Havana, who built a replica of a Cuban prison cell in his backyard to draw attention to appalling Cuba's human rights record:

The chief U.S. diplomat in Havana built a model of a Cuban prison cell in his backyard to draw attention to the island's human rights record, drawing fierce criticism from the speaker of Cuba's parliament.

James Cason, head of the U.S. Interests Section here, presented the structure, a model of what he said is a typical solitary holding cell in a Cuban prison, during a small diplomatic reception at his home Wednesday night.

"I'm not surprised by any unsightly display that man makes," Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's parliament, the National Assembly, said Thursday. "He lacks seriousness."

"What he should do is mount an exposition of the holding areas of the base at Guantanamo," Alarcon said, referring to the prison in easternmost Cuba where the U.S. military is holding hundreds of prisoners accused of links to Afghanistan's fallen Taliban regime or the al-Qaida terror network.

Cason said the structure was based on a description that imprisoned dissident Oscar Biscet gave his wife.

A little over six feet high and three feet wide, the holding cell of wood and metal features a drain on the floor for a toilet, a plastic bowl of food, a sheet for a bed and a fake rat.

Heh. Recreating Camp X-Ray in his backyard would probably cause a prison riot all over Castro's island.

Kerry: We'll Share The Burden - Spain: Everybody Out

In the week when Senator John Kerry promises a more 'intelligent' War on Islamist Terror, and would get other nations to join him and share the burden in Iraq more equally, Diana Kerry, John Kerry's sister, was in Madrid, Spain, rallying support for her brother's faltering campaign among Americans living overseas. Diana Kerry heads AOK, or Americans Overseas for Kerry-Edwards, and as such gets to smirk about how the whole world would vote for Kerry, if given the chance. Here's what she had to say in Madrid about Spanish-American relations under a Kerry administration:

MADRID, 9 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Diana Kerry, la directora y fundadora del movimiento ciudadano Americans Overseas for Kerry (OAK) y hermana del candidato demócrata en las presidenciales de noviembre en Estados Unidos, John Kerry, aseguró hoy en Madrid que, si su hermano gana las elecciones, mejorarán las relaciones con España en un "marco global".

Estas declaraciones fueron realizadas por la hermana de Kerry en el contexto de una gira por más de cien ciudades del mundo con el objetivo de movilizar al electorado demócrata y hacerle ver que "cada voto cuenta". De hecho, esta intensa actividad en el extranjero tiene como objetivo animar a cientos de miles de estadounidenses --150.000 con derecho a voto en el caso de España-- con la premisa de que más de la mitad de ellos prefiere la opción demócrata.

Antes de dirigirse a un grupo de seguidores, Diana Kerry dio una breve rueda de prensa en la que dijo "esperar que las relaciones con España mejoren en el marco global en el que espera que mejoren las relaciones bilaterales con otros países".

Con estas palabras, Diana Kerry hizo referencia al propósito de su hermano de hacer de Estados Unidos un país "más seguro y fuerte en casa y más respetado en el mundo". En este sentido, será necesario "hacer todo lo posible para restablecer la credibilidad que tenía en la comunidad internacional y restablecer las relaciones con los aliados", aseguró después de destacar la necesidad de "regresar a la comunidad de naciones".

Diana Kerry, the director and founder of the organization Americans Overseas for Kerry (AOK) and sister of the Democrat candidate in the presidential elections in the United States in November, John Kerry, today in Madrid assured that, if her brother wins the elections, the relations with Spain were to improve within a "global setting".

These statements were made by Kerry's sister as part of her tour of over one hundred cities in the world, with the goal of mobilizing the Democratic electorate, and make them see that "every vote counts". In fact, this intense activity abroad has the goal to rally support among the thousands of Americans --150,000 eligible voters in the case of Spain-- based on the premise that more than half of them would prefer the Democratic option.

Before addressing a group of followers, Diana Kerry gave a brief press conference in which she said that she "expects that the relationship with Spain improves within an international framework in which bilateral relations with other nations are expected to improve, too".

With these words, Diana Kerry made reference to her brother's proposal to make the United States "safer and stronger at home and more respected in the world". In this sense, it would be necessary to "do everything possible to re-establish the credibility it had in the international community and re-establish relations with the allies", she affirmed after emphasizing the need to "return to the community of nations".

The quotes attributed to her, and my translation of them, should not be used to 'quote' her. I've seen Spanish reporters fumble --fairly simple-- English before.

In any case, John Kerry promises us to rally support to share the burden more equally in Iraq, and her sister insists that relations with Spain would improve considerably, once Senator Kerry would get elected.

And what does Spain's Socialist government think of all this? Yesterday, Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero spoke in Tunis, Tunisia, at a press conference, and made the following statements (translation mine):

TUNIS. The president of the government took another step yesterday in his distancing from the United States' positions regarding Iraq, calling for countries which still have troops in the Arab country to follow Spain's example. From Tunis, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero assured that if more countries would pull out of Iraq, "there would be more favorable prospects".

[...]

Later, though expressing his respect for the decision of other countries which continue their presence, later emphasized privately by the Foreign Minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, he did not hesitate in reaffirming that "if more decisions would be taken in line with the Spanish government, there would be more favorable prospects". Together with the United States, counties like Australia, Japan and South Korea, have troops in Iraq, along with various European countries, like Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland and Denmark, who did not view well the Spanish retreat of its troops.

So, summarizing:

• Kerry promises to take the whole world on board more or less, to share the burden in Iraq
• His sister thinks that relations with Spain would improve considerably
• Spain's government calls upon the rest of the world to follow Spain's lead, and pull out of Iraq.

Kerry is a big douchebag for thinking that the world, with all its 'support' for a Kerry presidency, would actually join in and fight the good fight alongside a Democratic White House. To me, it just proves he a) does not understand 'the World', or b) is willfully lying about garnering (more) international support for the Iraqi reconstruction effort which will not materialize, or c) is preparing to pull out US troops, in accordance with 'global public opinion'.

Forged Docs Story Unravelling Fast

Links abound, but Scrappleface has the best (hat tip: The Corner):

1972 Email Casts Doubt on Bush Guard Service

(2004-09-09) -- CBS reporter Dan Rather today released the text of a recently discovered email from then-Lt. George W. Bush's Air National Guard commanding officer which casts more doubt upon the military service of the man who would become the 43rd President of the United States.

The revelation of the email comes just hours after questions were raised about the authenticity of typewritten memos from the same officer, shown yesterday by Mr. Rather on 60 Minutes.

According to the previously unseen email message sent in May 1972 by squadron commander Jerry Killian, Lt. Bush phoned Col. Killian because "his internet connection was on the fritz and he couldn't IM me."

Lt. Bush apparently wanted to talk about "how he can get out of coming to drill from now through November."

According to Col. Killian's email, the young Bush wanted to go to Alabama to work as webmaster for a Republican candidate's website.

Mr. Rather said the authenticity of the 32-year-old email has been confirmed by several Nigerian officials who specialize in electronic funds transfer by email.

Brilliant.

Wow, there's a big, and I mean HUGE storm brewing at the moment in the blogosphere. Blogs like Powerline and Little Green Footballs are reporting on the Bush National Guard documents shown on 60 Minutes yesterday and today in the Boston Globe might possibly be forgeries. As I write this, Powerline is not accessible out of Europe anymore, it must be receiving a lot of traffic. Same went for Little Green Footballs just now, but just keep trying, it is very good reading.

What is happening here though, beyond the 'usual' debunking of left-wing spin, is that journalism, as I type, is being redefined.

Jonah Goldberg of National Review says in The Corner:

But All Hail The Blogosphere if it slays the "60 Minutes" giant on this one.

He couldn't be more right, and the implications for the big media institutions as a primary source of information might take a huge hit out of this one.

El-Para Still In Hands Of MDJT

Algeria's Liberte interviews Patrick Forestier, a reporter for Paris Match (both links are in French, Paris Match' site is Flash, look for 'L'actualite' and then under 'autre' for 'Le Ben Laden du Sahel'), who went to Chad to meet with Al Qaeda-linked GSPC leader Abderrezak, also known as El Para, who is currently being held captive by Chadian rebel group MDJT, pending negotiations with both Algerian and German authorities for his handover. Apparently Libya's threats to bomb the rebels if they would not hand him over to them failed to materialize until now, something which led me to think something fishy was going on with Mad Dog Khadafi's intent to getting his hands on him before anybody else.

My French is lousy (as it should be, I suppose), but wanted to spread the word fast. Meanwhile I'll translate parts and publish in an update.

New Blog: The Diplomad

I recently stumbled upon The Diplomad, blogged by a Republican US diplomat, so kind of a rare species. I noticed the time difference on his blog, he must have been shipped off to some far corner in the world for it!

Anyway, he posted some thoughts on terror and Islam, and in the second part, he hit the nail on the head with two observations:

With all due respect to those arguing on behalf of the tolerant and peaceful nature of Islam, much of the debate reminds of us of those late-night sessions in university arguing whether or not the Soviet Union was truly socialist or communist. We always had the Karl Marx expert who could cite ol' Karl's teachings and "prove" to us that the Soviets were violating them and that Marx, in fact, had a truly wonderful vision for mankind -- the problem apparently being that those pesky humans just didn't cooperate with the vision.

That is so right. In fact, I still hear that crap about the Soviet Union not being Truly Socialist. Then, further down in the comments, he responds to a reader with this gem:

Just as not all Germans and Austrians were Nazis, certainly not all Muslims are terrorists -- as we stated. In Germany and Austria, however, the "good" people didn't assert themselves until the Nazis had led their countries into total disaster, including a prolonged military occupation by the Allies. So it appears with the Muslim world, which is why we argue that the crazies have to suffer a series of repeated and sharp defeats that will make it clear to the "good" Muslims that it's time to rethink and redo their societies and attitude towards the outside world.

Go on, pay him a visit!

Chechen Terrorists Put Price On Putin

In response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to offer a US$ 10 million reward for the heads of Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, the terrorists have responded by offering a US$ 20 million reward for whomever aids in the arrest of 'war criminal' Vladimir Putin, reports Dutch press agency ANP, who like many other major media in Europe insists on calling them 'rebels' (thanks to W):

Chechen rebels put price on head Putin

Thusrsday 9 September 2004

Moscow (ANP) -- Chechen insurgents Thursday offered a reward for the capture of Russian president Putin. The reward comes a day after Moscow put a price on the heads of resistance leaders Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev.

"We offer a reward of US$ 20 million (almost 16,9 million Euros) to countries, organizations or individuals who will assist the Chechen Republic actively in the arrest of war criminal Vladimir Vladimirovic Putin", stated one of the insurgents' websites. The Anti-Terror Center of the Chechen Republic, part of Maskadov's unrecognized government, signed the message.

Just last Wednesday Moscow offered a reward of US$10 million for information which leads to the arrest of Checen rebel leaders Maskhadov and Basayev. A close associate of Mashkadov called the price on the head of his boss a "sick attempt to imitate the US and the West".

Note that the original report (left in the translation) does not use scare quotes around "government" when mentioning the terrorist group's institutions.

Pak Air Force Bombs Al Qaeda Camp

From the Pakistani news site The News comes this report (you may have to scroll down as there is no separate link):

80 dead in S. Waziristan bombardment
(Updated at 2005 PST)
WANA: Eighty people were killed in Khonkhela in South Waziristan by a guided missile strike and bombardment by the Pakistan Air Force fighter planes.

Major General Shuakat Sultan has confirmed the death of fifty people.

In Khonkhela in the Mahsood tribe territory of Sararogha a gathering of foreigners also attended by the local people was hit by a missile killing several people, while many others were injured in the incident, correspondent of Geo Shaukat Khattak reported on Thursday.

Pak Air Force bombers also strike the area killing several people. About 80 people including local and foreign nationals were killed by missile strike and bombardment majority of them was foreigners.

Surveillance planes had flicked through the area before the bombardment, local sources said.

ISPR Chief Maj. General Shaukat Sultan told Geo that security forces targeted foreign terrorist training camps in Dela Khonkhela in 25 kilometer northeast of Wana and destroyed it.

“There were confirmed reports of presence of foreign suspects including Uzbek, Chechen and few Arabs in the area and were training foreign terrorists”, he said.

The people getting training from the area were involved in sabotage and terrorism acts in various parts of the country, he further said.

The operation was continued for about two hours in the area and security forces destroyed the target successfully, Shaukat Sultan added.

I don't know, but I've never heard of an air raid successfully taking out a terrorist camp and all the terrorists present. We'll see how this develops.

Bush's Service Record

William over at the Political Blog For The Politically Incorrect points out a nice article by Byron York in The Hill, which cuts out the spin and looks at what exactly President Bush did when he joined the National Guard in 1968. William is correct in comparing all this (and its lots) with the four months Kerry put in. To which York asks when Senator Kerry will release all of his records, just as President Bush did.

Libyan Dissident Still Imprisoned

The Wall Street Journal's Claudia Rosett points our attention to the fate of Fathi Eljahmi, a Libyan dissident languishing in Mad Dog Khadafi's dungeons. Libya, which last year headed the UN's Human Rights Committee, recently jailed Mr. Aljahmi again, after he got set free during the negotiations with the US on whether the country would give up nuclear weapons, or be turned into the parking lot for the Mall of the Africas:

Jailed two years ago in Libya's notorious Abu Salim prison for advocating political pluralism and free speech in Libya, Mr. Eljahmi was released this past March, in the first happy round of U.S.-Libyan rapprochement, after Gadhafi agreed last December to give up his nuclear weapons program. Mr. Eljahmi seized the chance to speak up again for liberty, saying that Libya needed the equivalent of the political roundtable debate that in Poland, in the 1980s, helped bring democratic reform.

Less than three weeks after Mr. Eljahmi's release, and just after the freshly rehabilitated Gadhafi had hosted visits to Tripoli by Tony Blair and Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, Libyan security squads detained Mr. Eljahmi once again, along with his wife and eldest son. Although "detained" is a perhaps too polite a word for a process in which Gadhafi's thugs assaulted Mr. Eljahmi at the door of his home, then dragged him away and have since held him incommunicado.

Ms. Rosett goes on to criticize the UN, Europe and the State Department in their disinterest in the matter. Read it all.

Dhimmitude In Spanish Prison

Spanish Newspaper El Mundo reports on the Topas prison in Salamanca, where Muslim prisoners have taken over the library and converted it into a mosque, barring entrance to any non-Muslim (translation mine):

Madrid.- A group of 110 Muslim inmates are imposing their rule in the Topas correctional facility (Salamanca), where they have turned the library into a mosque, to which no other inmate who doesn't profess their religion is given access, El Mundo has learned.

Five times a day, the muezzin calls for prayer over loudspeakers, which provokes continuous complaints of the rest of the Spanish inmates, because it wakes them up before midnight and at six AM, prison staff informed this newspaper.

The confrontations between this core of Islamist inmates and the rest of the inmates have gotten worse, to the point where the authorities have found themselves compelled to physically separate the inmates into separate parts of the prison. The group is forcefully pressuring other Moroccan inmates, who end up praying though they're not practicing Muslims.

Moreover, this group is causing problems for female medical staff, or ATS, to enter the section of the prison. "On entering the section, it's like you cross the border into another country. We're saying that we're going to need carrying Maghreb passports. The section is theirs. The prison authorities aren't left with any means except to accept it, because we've had big problems with the Arabs. This prison is a powder keg", one of the prison staff said.

Last year the prison staff sent a letter denouncing the situation to the Directorate-General of Penitentiary Institutes, which back then was headed by Angel Yuste.

However, their complaints have been in vain, since no steps have been taken to stop the situation. The staff criticize the prison's overcrowdedness --which counts 1,512 inmates, of which 806 are foreigners, or 53% of the total-- and call for a spreading of these inmates over other prisons, with the aim to stop them from organizing.

This is insane, of course. How long before the first attack by a terror cell who has been trained entirely in prison?

Say What?

BBC reporter Steve Eke manages to put this line into a piece on Russia's reaction to the Beslan massacre:

Russians have rarely been blessed with leaders who valued the opinion of the man in the street. Despite the Soviet-style demonstration and articles on the "heroic" special forces, not one senior official in Moscow, from the president down, has said sorry to the parents of Beslan.

But the tough talk goes down well with ordinary Russians. They are deeply upset and disturbed by the massacre in North Ossetia. They distrust their own government. But many are also furious at what they say is the West's refusal to believe Russia when it comes to questions of international terrorism.

Come again? Apologies? And he continues to be surprised that Russians seemingly agree with President Putin when it comes to how to deal with these animals. To close with a note on the furor Russians feel when it comes to the West's treatment of Russia's terrorist enemies.

Reported by the BBC, the world's largest news organization, which consistently uses the word 'rebels' to describe these terrorists. How far can you have your head up your own backside?

Madman Claims Peace Prize

I really don't want to waste any more words on the Mad Dog of the Mideast, Muamur Khadafi, but his ambassador to Uganda suggested to award him with the Nobel Peace Prize:

The Libyan ambassador has said the next Noble Peace Prize should go to Col. Muamar Gadaffi for his decision to dismantle the country's nuclear programme and weapons of mass destruction.

Libyan ambassador A. Bujeldain said Libya was the first country in the world to abandon a nuclear weapons programme on her own without external pressure.

The envoy was speaking at the 35th anniversary of the Great Al Fatah Revolution at his residence in Nakasero on Wednesday.

The article doesn't state if the speech was made before or after dinner, and if there was a lot of alcohol served.

And please, no comments on how Muslims don't drink, it would just ruin a perfectly good punch line!

Spain's Investigation Into March 11 Attacks

I've kept from posting on the parliamentary investigation into the March 11 attacks in Madrid, mostly out of frustration. In all my life, I have never seen such blatant politicizing of something so important to the safety of a nation. To the point, where posting on it would inevitably turn into ranting, raving, and subsequently being disqualified.

But, it's important to remind people of where we stand, so many thanks to Franco Alemán at Barcepundit, who brings this good update on the proceedings here in Madrid. This comes a day after the investigative committee decided to continue investigating, having toyed with the idea to just call it quits and denounce the previous government (you think that sounds a bit strange, wait till you read the whole article). To wet your appetite:

Trouble is that the current government doesn't have much incentive to investigate, and are not too interested in having more people testify at the commision; besides of what I wrote above, it keeps the March 11 alive reminding people that their victory is somewhat linked to the slain of 200 innocent Spaniards.

Which means we may never know the truth.

Paramount in this whole politicized mess is that the Spanish people are being bereft of a sense of a state of urgency to combat terrorism and Al Qaeda in particular, simply because it doesn't comply with the Socialists view of the world. On top of that, preparing for another attack (which I still believe will come) just adds fuel to the thought, like Alemán says, that the Spanish people made a mistake in voting in the Socialists after Al Qaeda struck them.

And meanwhile, Al Qaeda is plotting, and Zapatero put his action plan on terrorism with Arafat-loving foreign minister Moratinos.

Kerry's Damage Control Worse Than His Gun Control

Kerry holding shotgun he would ban.

Matt Drudge reported on the photo-op of Kerry at a picnic in Racine, West Virginia, where he received a shotgun, which would be banned under a bill he co-sponsored. Funny of course.

But today the Kerry camp rebutted Drudge, and take a look at this statement out of its rebuttal:

"The facts are clear. John Kerry opposes banning this gun and always will. John Kerry was proud to receive this union-made gun at the United Mine Workers Labor Day picnic in Racine, West Virginia.

I mean, is it just me, or is there a huge flip flop in those two lines?

Senator Kerry must have a far bigger problem than I thought, if his response team sends out stuff like this.

Does Russia Have Blogs?

Going over to ITAR-TASS, the former Soviet Press Agency, to look for some last minute info on the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Beslan, I come across this gem:

Ship with heaps of toxic stuff aboard sank near Turkish coast

ANKARA, September 7 (Itar-Tass) - A ship with 2,200 tons of toxic stuff on board sank in the Iskenderun Bay off the Turkish coast on Monday.

The freight ship carrying the waste from a Spanish thermal power plant was sent from Spain to Algeria more than four years ago, AA news agency said. The stuff on board might have been used for the construction of a dike in Algeria. However, the Algerian authorities refused to accept the cargo after a chemical test of the stuff was made. On February 25, 2000 the hazardous cargo arrived in the Iskenderun Bay. For four years since the ship had been lying out at sea, exposed to corrosion until the ship gave leaks and finally sank.

Guess ITAR-TASS doesn't have heaps of blogs ensuring accurate reporting!

Oh and thanks, Spain. Be interesting to see if this hits the news, after all the outrage (outrage!) about the oil tanker Prestige sinking of the northern coast of Spain. Let's see if they will accept the bill for the clean-up, although the Socialist government will probably try and distance itself from yet another disaster caused by the previous government.

I guess Socialists haven't really learned to look forward.

Punish France, Ignore Germany, Reward Russia

The sickening calls coming out of all of Europe's stinking corners, for Russia to 'open a dialogue' or other calls for appeasement, were put down masterfully by Vladimir Putin today:

"No-one has a moral right to tell us to talk to child killers," Mr Putin was quoted as saying by Britain's Guardian and Independent newspapers.

He added: "Why don't you meet Osama Bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?

"You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers?"

He's absolutely right. What seems to be happening at a rapid pace throughout Europe, is a realization by the Left that when public opinion starts to accept that Al Qaeda has active ties to the resistance in Chechnya, the end is near for their liberal, appeasement-driven approach to the War on Islamist Terror. But as the story is developing, and more details will come out of Moscow and Beslan, this will prove to be unholdable.

First, turn over to Winds Of Change's Thoughts on Beslan, an excellent backgrounder by Dan Darling on Chechnya's bloody conflict, the key players and the links to 'international terrorism' (that's Al Qaeda to you and me). He correctly points out that people claiming that these are separatist attacks, payback for Moscow's (repressive, hence 'understandable') presence in the Caucasus, do not have a clue:

The problem with Chechnya, more or less, is that the Russians tried to surrender after their failure to bring the rebellious republic back into the fold in the first Chechen war and it didn't work. The country was taken over by a mixture of international terrorist organizations, Wahhabi theocrats, drug cartels, and other criminal organizations that subsided more or less on generous funding from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

This funding helped the Wahhabis to finalize control over the institutional infrastructure of the de facto independent state and led for calls for the imposition of sha'riah even though most Chechens (and Caucasus Muslims in general) are Sufis. The al-Qaeda presence in Chechnya was headed up by bin Laden's protege Amir ibn al-Khattab, a Saudi national who had previously assisted Islamic fighters in the Tajik Civil War and the Armenia-Azerbaijan War over Nagorno-Karabakh.

There's a lot more, all pointing towards a 'hijacking' of a separatist movement by Islamist terrorism.

The fear of Europe's intellectual elites, press corps and politicians is simple. Six months after Al Qaeda's attack in Madrid, Bin Laden's repeated threats on accepting his truce, now echoed and amplified by the Iraqi terrorists holding two French reporters, are showing the French that their 'good' relations with all the thugs in the Middle East doesn't amount to zip when it comes to negotiating with terrorists.

They are afraid because all this talk about addressing 'root causes' in the face of butchers, rapists and death-loving Jihadists shows there is no plan, no alternative but to fight it, wherever you find it. They must take a stand, when they don't want to take a stand, or can't, because it means accepting they were wrong, because the world is more black and white than they imagined, because there is Good and there is Evil.

In the words of Condoleezza Rice: Punish France, Ignore Germany and Reward Russia (I mistakenly misquoted Rice, see update below for explanation). France has been punished and will find itself more and more isolated, perhaps only counting on the Spanish to back their strategy of appeasement. Germany has been isolated and is punishing itself, almost certainly ousting Schroeder's government in 2006 but perhaps sooner leaving him a lame duck in his own country where the states making up Germany are all falling to the opposition. Which leaves Russia's Reward.

The massacre at Beslan offers a unique, though grief-stricken, opportunity to the US to extend a hand to Russia, and take her on board in World War IV. The US should look beyond -for now- the anti-democratic forces at play in Russian domestic politics, and show she truly is her friend in this darkest hour. A mini summit, preferably in the next weeks, between President Bush and President Putin on Islamist Terrorism could be seen as the two finally coming together to combat their common enemy. The US could push for an end to Russia's support for Iran's nuclear program, and in return jointly develop and share the weapons systems it needs to reform Russia's outdated forces into units ready to fight asymetrically. The US should also firmly defend Russia's actions in places like Chechnya, while walking the fine line not to come across as supporters of state repression. This perhaps, more than anything else, is what Putin wants.

The US can work intensively with them on a common approach, nudging Russia gently towards democratic reform in its republics, demonstrating them that a hard fight against terrorism in absence of democracy only feeds the beast. The US could perhaps bring Georgia and Russia together, where a young president is looking to join NATO and fighting Al Qaeda bases used to attack Chechnya on his soil, while Russia distrusts their pro-Western agenda.

If we accept Pakistan, a dictatorship, as a key ally in the War on Islamist Terror, and along the way feel confident in moving them towards a decent form of self representation, then surely Russia should have an immensely higher status?

UPDATE 07/08/2004: I was pointed out by several readers, here and at The Command Post, that the quote attributed to Condi Rice was in fact: "Punish France, Ignore Germany, Reward Russia", rather the "Ignore France and Punish Germany" I initially used (since corrected in title and text). I don't think it changed the essence of the post itself though, which focuses on Russia.

Europe's Contribution To Afghanistan

A sad piece in today's Washington Post on Europe's impotence when it comes to keeping the peace outside of Europe, and reports from Afghanistan:

Afghanistan has been left with peacekeeping done on the cheap. Major European powers such as France, Italy, Turkey and Spain have coughed up only a few hundred troops each for duty in the country. The Germans have been more generous, but even their contingent tops out at just 2,000 troops. The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, a Kabul-based think tank, calculated that the Afghanistan mission (including the U.S. troops under separate command) is orders of magnitude weaker than recent missions to Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti and East Timor. In Kosovo there was one international soldier for every 50 citizens; in Afghanistan there is one peacekeeper for every 1,000 Afghans. These paltry contributions come even as the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia has shrunk from 50,000 troops in 1995 to just over 7,000 today.

Spain, a country of 42 million, is rotating its troops currently, replacing the current 300 or so troops with no more than 1,040 by the time of the presidential elections. And they need to be out, come what may, within 90 days after deployment on orders of minister of retreat defense José Bono. David Bosco finishes with this thought:

But at some point the European excuses wear thin. The United States has almost 120,000 troops in Iraq and close to 20,000 in Afghanistan hunting extremists. In this setting of sustained sacrifice, the European states should be able to cobble together more than 7,000 soldiers for a credible Afghan peacekeeping force. The hard truth is that European political leaders have not had the courage to seek to convince their skeptical publics of the need for a commitment to Afghanistan. At the same time, few European governments have invested adequately in their militaries, which are still structured for territorial defense and have trouble operating far from home for extended periods.

Unless European leaders are dissembling, they understand the significance of the transition underway in Afghanistan. They understand that failure will have strategic consequences for the West and terrible human consequences for the Afghan people. Disturbing enough on its own, Europe's performance in Afghanistan has even darker implications: It suggests that the hands-off policy in Iraq may be little more than military impotence and political weakness masquerading as principle.

Heh. All I can say is that Spanish troops are transported by commercial airliners. The Socialists here are trying to make a political thing out of an accident with a rented Yakovlev Yak-42, which crashed in Turkey while rotating troops out of Afghanistan (out of 60 dead, some thirty were falsely identified which formed a perfect excuse for the incoming Socialist government to get rid of a bunch of hawks among the Joint Chiefs). Sadly enough, the (now in the oposition) PP party did not counter by asking a firm commitment to buy only the best materials to transport Spanish troops around the world. Instead, they -like what happened when they were shouted down before the elections- played their opponent's game, and went into spasmodic defenses -again.

Illustrative of the state of affairs in European defense today. Except for maybe France and the United Kingdom (and the Czechs and Poles who are rapidly transforming their armies and specializing), it's all underfunded, and can't be moved to any theater outside continental Europe.

Some Thoughts On The Beslan Massacre

A quick post on the aftermath of the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks (there, I just had to say it, since no one in the regular press in Spain -like elsewhere- seems to want to call it that) on two Russian airliners, the Moscow subway and the horrible massacre of Children (children!) in Beslan, North Osetia.

It's a personal observation more than anything, something that's been bugging me all morning. The news on tv (both the public TVE and TeleMadrid as well as the commercial Antena3 and Tele Cinco) showed vigils at the Russian embassy in Washington, DC, a candle-lit march in Rome and other outpoors of respect around Europe, like the lowering of the flags at the EU Council of Ministers yesterday.

And Spain? Madrid? Surely, a European capital hit by Al Qaeda on March 11 of this year will be among the first to take to the streets? To overwhelm the condoleance register at the Russian embassy?

Nothing. Not a thing. No march. No images of flowers laid at the embassy. No line-ups to sign a condoleance register.

It scares me, honestly. If some can say that the US has over-reacted (though I fail to see how, talk to me when Pyong Yang has been turned into a parking lot), then surely Spain is suffering from a severe case of denial, not willing or able to cope with the attacks on its soil, directed at its people.

Okay, I really needed to get this off my chest. Maybe some Spanish reader can explain me (comments!). This is not a jab at 'those cowardly Spanish', I think my writing on the subject proves otherwise. I'm just, sincerely, not understanding.

True Allies: Georgia

A Spanish blog, El Buque Negro (The Black Ship), pointed me to a release by Europa Press on the former Soviet republic of Georgia's decision to double its contingent in Iraq (link in Spanish) by October. Radio Free Europe also makes note of it.

But the latter doesn't capture the reasoning for rotating the current batallion of 157 and replacing it with a 300-man strong one in October. Says Georgia's defense minister, currently visiting Iraq:

"Somos aliados de Estados Unidos y queremos convertirnos en un socio muy importante para este país. Deseamos adherirnos a la OTAN y queremos por tanto probar que estamos aquí", declaró Baramidzé. Por su parte, Rusia ve con muy malos ojos la voluntad del Gobierno georgio de adherirse a la OTAN.

Durante unas conversaciones con oficiales estadounidenses en una base militar, el ministro agradeció a Estados Unidos que proporcionen a los soldados georgios uniformes, alimentos, chalecos antibalas y municiones. "Tenemos gente muy valiente, pero no muchos medios. Y sólo podemos enviaros lo más preciado que tenemos, nuestros hombres", declaró. Tres soldados georgios han resultado heridos desde el despliegue de su contingente en Irak en abril de 2004.

"We're allies of the United States and want to transform ourselves into an important ally to that country. We would like to join NATO and demonstrate this by being here", stated Baramidzé. For its part, Russia looks on in dislike of Georgia's willingness to join NATO.

During meetings with American officers at a military base, the minister thanked the United States for outfitting its troops with uniforms, rations, body armor and munition. "We have very brave people, but very few means. And we only can send the most precious we have, our men", he stated. Three Georgian soldiers have been injured since the deployment of its contingent in Iraq in April, 2004.

No, Mr. Baramidzé, thank you. Fighting Al Qaeda at home as well, aided by US advisers (in the Pankisi Gorge), the Georgia of president Mikheil Saakashvili has turned a page with the ousting of Soviet remnant Eduard Shevardnadze late last year, and is looking West for its future.

GSPC Appoints New Leader

Reuters reports on the replacement of Nabril Saharaoui. To look for more reports on the GSPC, just use the handy search tool at the top of this page, and search for 'GSPC'. Interestingly, Reuters reports further down that Al Para is still being held by Chadian rebels.

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's largest Islamic rebel group with ties to al Qaeda said it has appointed a new chief, known as an explosives expert, as it tries to regroup following the loss of key leaders in recent gun battles with authorities.

"Thanks to God for the appointment of Abou Mossab Abdelouadoud as the emir of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) to replace martyr Nabil Sahraoui," the GSPC said in an undated statement obtained by Reuters on Monday.

Security sources said the information was credible.

The GSPC, which has been fighting for a purist Islamic state since 1998, made headlines last year with the kidnapping of dozens of European tourists in the Sahara desert.

The United States has focused on North Africa, and Algeria in particular, over the past year in its war on terror and is trying to stop fundamentalism from gaining a foothold in Africa.

The GSPC is on the U.S. list of foreign terrorist groups and recently pledged allegiance to al Qaeda. Several of its founding members fought alongside Osama bin Laden against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, according to experts.

Security sources say Abdelouadoud, the group's explosives chief whose real name is Abdelmalek Droukdel, is among the few surviving senior members after Sahraoui and others were killed in a battle with Algerian armed forces in June.

"He was there from the beginning although he didn't fight in Afghanistan," said a security analyst. "If anyone can unify the GSPC, it's him, but it's already very weakened and divided."

KEY TO SURVIVAL

The appointment is crucial to the survival of the struggling movement as the army has all but crushed a number of rebel groups spread across the country.

These and other groups launched a holy war or "jihad" against the authorities after the army canceled legislative elections in 1992 that a hardline Muslim party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), looked sure to win.

More than 150,000 people have died violently since then, and although the level of violence has fallen sharply in recent years more than 300 people have died this year.

The GSPC was formed by disillusioned members of the ruthless Armed Islamic Group (GIA), notorious for attacking civilians and for slitting its victims' throats.

Droukdel, born in 1971, studied at university for two years before dropping out to join rebels in the mountains, experts said. He was recently made head of the GSPC's supreme council.

The GSPC's No. 2, Amari Saifi, alias Abderrazak el Para and responsible for the kidnappings last year, is being held by Chadian rebels.

The GSPC, currently numbering a few hundred, has in recent months stepped up its campaign of violence against the army and police in and east of the capital Algiers.

Washington is sharing intelligence with and providing military training to countries in the Sahara region in its drive to stop the threat posed by al Qaeda and the GSPC.

Iraqi Captors Want Money, Surrender

The Australian (hat tip: Command Post) reports that the Iraqi captors of two French reporters have posted new demands for their release on a Jihadi website:

A STATEMENT purportedly from the captors of two French journalists in Iraq gave France 48 hours from today to accept three new conditions - agreeing to a recent truce offer by Osama bin Laden, payment of $US5 million ($7.26 million) ransom and a pledge not to get involved in Iraq.

The Islamic Army of Iraq has decided to make "the following demands to release the two French hostages", said a statement signed by the group's "higher command" and posted on an Islamist website.

The statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, listed the demands as "accepting a truce between them and Sheikh Osama bin Laden, paying a $US5 million ransom and pledging not to engage militarily and commercially in Iraq."

"You have a maximum of 48 hours to accept these demands," said the statement, which seemed partly addressed to other Western governments as well as France.

In a taped message broadcast by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television on April 15, bin Laden offered peace to European countries that refrained from attacks against Muslims and pulled their troops out of the Islamic world within three months.

European leaders promptly dismissed the offer, saying the idea of negotiating with bin Laden was absurd.

Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale, Georges Malbrunot of the daily Le Figaro and their Syrian driver were taken hostage on August 20 by the Islamic Army of Iraq, which demanded that France rescind a ban on Islamic headscarves in state schools.

France refused the demand and implemented the ban last Thursday at the beginning of the new academic year.

"Beware of bombing us as you did in Latifiya, on the day we meant to hand them (hostages) over," the statement said. That was a reference to a major assault on Saturday by Iraqi police and national guardsmen, assisted by United States forces, on the no-go zone of Latifiya, a bastion of the Sunni Muslim insurgency south of Baghdad.

A senior cleric from the strict Wahhabi current of Islam in Iraq yesterday issued a fatwa (Islamic decree) demanding the captors of the two French reporters free them immediately.

But Sheikh Mehdi al-Sumaidaie, an influential figure among the extremist Sunni organisations responsible for the bulk of kidnappings in Iraq lately, also lambasted the Iraqi government and US forces for staging the Latifiya raid in the area where the pair was kidnapped, saying it had harmed efforts for their release.

"The attack on Latifiya disrupted the process of their release," he said.

French officials today urged patience and caution, tempering the optimism expressed at the weekend that the newsmen would soon be released.

"We have reliable indications that allow us to believe that they are in good health and that their release is possible," Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told French LCI television.

"But as long as the hostages are being held and are still in Iraq, we must be extremely cautious," she added. "The less we say, the better it is for them."

So, while attempting to drive a wedge between France and the United States (don't these people watch Fox?) they've seemingly given up on their demand to repeal the ban on headscarves in France, now that the law has entered into effect. So now they just want money and the acceptance of a truce offered by Bin Laden (whose ultimatum also expired some two months ago) and, oh, the money please.

In a way, this is good news. Captors that start to renegotiate demands they first put forward, even though seemingly they upped the ante, is always a sign of weakness. It's very possible that they feel the US Army breathe down their necks, and will probably want to lose them as quickly as possible.

Only problem of course is that paying money for their release can be tempting to the French. Let's hope the Marines get to them first.

New Blog: Out-take.tv

Ok, he's taunted me into linking him and hopefully (but don't expect it) pushing some misguided visitor his way. My good friend, who blogs under the name Keno (isn't that a bingo-type game?) has a blog without a title, so go over to out-take.tv/blog to see what goes on in the mind of a crazed liberal. The poor fellow, so distraught about the upcoming landslide victory for President Bush.

But, his writing is amusing (Here's a tip Keno, you travel the world, tonns of stuff to blog about!) and he has noticed Barack Obama, the guy I hope will run over Jesse Jackson and that race baiter Sharpton one day.

Mind you, not that African Americans NEED any 'leaders' but that's probably too progressive for a Democrat to grasp.

Spain Will Have A Plan Soon!

Well, that is to say, socialist Prime Minister Zapatero asked his Foreign Minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos (whom we all know as a big fan of Arafat), who bestowed it upon his own senior diplomats to come up with a plan to fight terrorism.

A fight which must encompass a social, cultural and an economic dimension, according to Moratinos (link in Spanish). So not a real fight, but more money for dictators, and understanding for their precious 'root causes'.

Señaló, en relación al terrorismo internacional, que "nos encontramos ante un fenómeno complejo y peligroso con dimensiones múltiples, tanto en el plano de la seguridad como de la política interior y exterior", por eso, puntualizó, ha pedido a los responsables de esta materia de su Ministerio la elaboración de un plan.

Moratinos reiteró la importancia de tener un mayor conocimiento sobre el mundo islámico y adelantó que uno de los objetivos del "plan general de lucha contra el terrorismo internacional es que en nuestra política se construya una alianza estratégica" con los países musulmanes.

He remarked, in relation to international terrorism, that "we find ourselves confronting a complex and dangerous phenomenon with multiple dimensions, both in the area of security, as in the field of internal and external politics". Which is why, he stated, he asked the responsible civil servants in his department to come up with a plan.

Moratinos reiterated the importance of having a better understanding of the muslim world and further stated that one of the objectives of the "plan for the fight against international terrorism will be to form strategic alliances" with Islamic countries.

Of course, a very good plan exists already, President Bush's Greater Middle East Initiative, which includes all the nations Moratinos is anxious to snuggle up to. In his soft-biggoted worldview of low expectations, Arabs should be treated as, well Arabs. As long as stories about torture and corruption in their countries don't end up in our newspapers too often, Moratinos will be happy to keep sending money and teach Spaniards about Islam, that Religion of Peace. Nothing new.

It's curious (but then again, I'm not Spanish) to see a government so reluctantly treat a direct attack against its people, which the current government still treats as an attack against the former government. To leave the fight against Islamic terror with Moratinos and his diplomats will ensure a continuation of failed policies, and an extended invitation for more terrorist attacks, here or elsewhere.

Blogger Problems

I'm trying to 'sex up' the ol' blog here, and with mixed results. Changing the colors went fine, it's the header that's bugging me. No setting for height, it sort of 'squeezes' my background image into a preset, though unknown to me, height, which, on top of that is even smaller on the archived pages.

I think I have a workaround, by using a simple, camouflage only background pic added to the template, and inserting a .gif of the actual title into the Description field, so it will form a new layer on top of the background, and thus assuring visibility on both types of pages.

Anybody have any better ideas (my mind comes up with the weirdest, most inefficient solutions to these type of problems), drop a comment or mail me.

UPDATE: the workaround seems to work, so for now that's fine. Need to adjust the title though, as the transparency of the .gif I used leaves room for improvement. It also doesn't seem centered. Aaaargh!

UPDATE 2: I give up, hence the 'subtle' or 'minimalist' new header. I declare defeat before a GUI, due to a lack of understanding of CSS. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Iran And Al-Zarqawi

Iraq blogger Fayrouz at Live From Dallas has translated an interesting article from the Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, which talks of extensive links between the Mullahs and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, Iraqi Public Enemy No. 1 and Al Qaeda affiliate. Its reasons? Simple. Just like President Bush mentioned yesterday in his acceptance speech at the RNC, the Mullahs may not like a Suni terrorist, but they absolutely fear the idea of a democratic Iraq next door:

Iran admits it provides facilities to Al-Zarqawi to conduct his operations in Iraq

A reliable Iranian source confirmed that Brig. Gen. Qassim Sullaimani, the commander of Al-Quds corps in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, told a closed seminar that Iran provides facilities to the Jordanian extremist scholar, Abu Mosaab Al-Zarqawi. Al-Zarqawi is accused of conducting most of the suicide operations and attacks in Iraq. Sullaimani justified this cooperation because Al-Zarqawi's activities in Iraq "serve the high interests of the Islamic Republic." Among these interests is the prevention of a federalist secular regime in Iraq that cooperates with the United States.

The source, who attended the closed seminar for students of strategic and defense studies at the university of Imam Al-Hussein told "Al-Sharq Al-Awsat" newspaper that Brig. Gen. Sullaimani said, "Al-Zarqawi and members of his organization (Ansar Al-Islam) don't need prior permission to enter Iran. There are specific border points which stretch from Halabja in the north to Elam in the south where Al-Zarqawi and more than 20 Ansar Al-Islam commanders can enter Iran whenever they want."

The source said Brig. Gen. Sullaimani, who oversees the activities of the revolutionary guards intelligence units and Al-Quds corps operating in Iraq, answered questions from students about why Iran supports a person who is anti-Shia, like Al-Zarqawi, who previously was accused of his involvement in the killing of Ayet Allah Mohammed Baqir Al-Hakim, president of the high council of Islamic revolution in Iraq.

Despite the accusation coming from close circles to the Iranian regime leader Ali Kham'ani, Sullaimani considers Al-Zarqawi's involvement in Al-Hakim's killing unconfirmed. Instead, he said Al-Zarqawi's activities now serve the high interests of the Islamic Republic. The establishment of a secular Iraq that cooperates with the United States is more dangerous than the former Baath regime. The new regime will form – according to Al-Sullaimani – a real threat to the pure revolutionary Mohamedi Islam and the scholars' state – according to the source.

Much like the Iranian capture of British sailors on patrol in Iraqi waters, and the earlier 'rearranging' of its border with Iraq near Basra, right after the fall of Baghdad, it seems another provocation by the mullahs. They're testing us, finding out how far they can push.

I'm not too sure of the editorial scrutiny of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (I believe they're pro-Saddam even), we'll have to wait and see how this develops.

The Last Days Of Brussels

A brilliant piece by Dutch writer Leon de Winter in The Weekly Standard, who writes about Europe's self-congratulatory pose when it comes to its so-called Soft Power, its (perceived) ability to project power through persuasion, dialogue and compromise. Its roots of this aversion of using force, lie with the Holocaust, after which something snapped inside the collective mind of Europeans.

Post-historical and post-religious Europe, born in the shadow of the Holocaust, does not see sacrifice as legitimate. Of course, considering that Europe has nurtured some of the world's cruelest ideologies, the dread of scenarios that might require sacrifice is hardly surprising. The problem is that much of the world, especially the Arab Islamic parts of it, is simply not interested in the moral and ethical implications of Europe's bloody past.

Since Auschwitz--the benchmark of ideological and political developments in Europe--the miracle of European prosperity and freedom has not led to the conviction that this prosperity and freedom must be defended, if necessary by force; on the contrary, the miracle has given birth to an attitude of cultural relativism and pacifism. It is as if modern Europe had divested itself of its idealistic and historical context, as if many Europeans saw the miracle of a prosperous and free Europe as an ahistorical, natural, and permanent state of affairs--as if Auschwitz had been wiped from their memory.

But anyone who is ignorant of, or ignores, the fact that tens of millions of Europeans died in the twentieth century in the struggle between good and evil--and it seems most Europeans have simply forgotten this--will fail to appreciate that the continued existence of Europe's system of liberal moral and ethical values is the result of conscious choices by courageous Europeans (and many others).

But De Winter fears it may not be so much amnesia that has since struck the European mind, but a complete disconnect with its past. Of wars as an abstract concept, always wrong, whatever the stakes, whatever the alternatives.

Most Europeans no longer regard Auschwitz as the disastrous result of evil ideas and the evil decisions of human beings. Instead, they see it as the consequence of something more like a natural disaster.

Perfectly expressing this concept of war were the huge demonstrations in Europe against the war in Iraq. In these rituals, the term "war" was taken out of its historical, political, and cultural context, and no justification for fighting was deemed acceptable. The high priest of this antihistorical creed is Michael Moore, who, 59 years after the end of the Second World War, in a discussion with TV talk show host Bill O'Reilly, would not state categorically that only a devastating war could have saved Europe from something far worse, namely Nazism. By these lights, war is bad whatever the historical or political circumstances.

This, he explains, resulted in European paralyzation when the Former Yugoslavia imploded, and the hated United States was needed once again to bring peace. He holds a bleak view for the future of Europe, for which he uses the example of the Iranian nuclear bomb. Having congratulated itself (the article opens with references to press articles on the 'agreement' reached by EU foreign ministers with the mullahs in October 2003, avoiding in their minds a nuclear crisis proving the superiority of the EU's Soft Power approach) on its diplomatic 'successes' with Tehran, and meanwhile painting the US as the real enemy:

It is remarkable that current developments in Iran do not dominate our headlines. The media are obsessed by Abu Ghraib, by those "liars" Sharon and Bush, by Halliburton and the neocons. And their obsession extends to conspiracy theories, although they fail to realize that something must be wrong when a radical pacifist like Michael Moore can receive the best film award at Cannes from Quentin Tarantino, a man who has done more than anyone to glamorize violence. In the meantime, a terrifying danger looms on the horizon, set to transform the geopolitical map of the Middle East within two years and so the map of the entire world: the Iranian nuclear bomb.

The mullahs are quite frank about why they want nuclear weapons. On December 14, 2001, the de facto dictator of Iran, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, spelled out his dream in a sermon at Tehran University. "If one day the world of Islam comes to possess the [nuclear] weapons currently in Israel's possession," Rafsanjani said, "on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end." This, he said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb on Israel would entirely demolish the Jewish state, whereas it would only damage the Islamic world. Iran's leaders have made dozens of similar statements.

Last week Israel's senior commentator Zeev Schiff wrote in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "There is an impression that Iran has no fears of any United Nations Security Council action. If its audacity succeeds, Iran will gain another period of unhindered nuclear development. Even though the Iranians have been caught out in the lies they have been weaving for 18 years, it is possible the ayatollahs' regime in Tehran believes that time is on their side."

What happened in Tehran on October 21, 2003, was not proof of the viability of soft power, but the opposite--proof of its impotence. The Guardian and the rest of the European media were fooling themselves and us, blinded by their hatred of Bush's hard power. "Washington sought to persuade Western allies to take a tougher line on Iran," Haaretz wrote last week, concluding dryly, "But Britain, Germany, and France say they prefer to try and persuade Tehran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency." They never learn.

Of course, as we read today, Iran is doing exactly that, converting 37 tons of "yellowcake" uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), which only purpose is for atomic warheads.

It put me in a somber mood, because it puts yet more importance on the US Presidential elections this November. And a Kerry win will surely see the Iranian Bomb Looming over Europe and the World. In all, the article paints a civilization during its last days. It may be fifty years, it may be another hundred. But if Europe insists on staying its decadent course, paying more and more Dane-geld along the way, it is doomed to disappear.

It is up to the United States, and only the United States, to push them, like (oh irony!) a stern father, back from the brink. A good place to start would be a complete pullout of US troops, and let them realize they have no defense. Offer them the protection of an anti-missile shield, but let them pay in full. Leave the United Nations, and let them realize they are surrounded by thugs.

Athena In Jordan

I just found a new blog, called Terrorism Unveiled, by a woman blogging under the name of Athena from Jordan, where she is studying as part of her double major studies in International Studies (world trade and development) and Peace, War and Defense (national and international security), and looks to learn Arabic as well. Let's support her there, and follow her what are to be sure very interesting encounters (the first one already is!).

Iowa Electronic Market Being Played?

Look at this interesting development over at the Iowa Electronic Market. The market is famous for predicting the outcome of previous US presidential elections better than any poll or exit poll has done, and people can trade contracts on the outcome of the November 2 Presidential elections. In the 2004 Presidential Winner Take All market, DEM04 contracts closed on August 30 at $0.452 having traded between $0.450 and $0.454 at normal volumes, and REP04 contracts closed that day at $0.549, with lows of the day at $0.540 and a high of $0.548, also at normal trading levels.

Then, on August 31, the second day of the Republican National Convention, volumes are up almost four-fold on both contracts, shorting REP04 to bring it to a close of $0.501 and heavy buying of DEM04 brings it to $0.500.

Did somebody make a quick buck? Current quotes show DEM04 trading at $0.463 and REP04 at $0.540.

Evil thought: Is some Dem operative with deep pockets playing the IEM, to ensure the closing prices graph shows favorable DEM04 ratings, to unload again at the beginning of the next trading day?

It's costing money, but does in return provide the Dems with a favorable reading in what some of us consider a more valuable tool in gauging the country's opinion of both candidates.

Ok, evil thought over. Would like to hear the IEM's thoughts on this, though, or anyone investing in it.

UPDATE: D'oh! While emailing Greg Reynolds of Instapundit.com with the tip that's for sure going to put my blog on the map, I see that he already has done an exact copy of my post, way earlier too. Oh well, that's why he's the instapundit. Next time, though!

Moorish Girl's Blog

...is an interesting read. Though she lives in Portland, Oregon, she is currently blogging from her holiday stay with family in Morocco, so with our neighbors.

"Why don't you come have dinner at my house?" I've heard that invitation over and over since arriving here this weekend. I try to convince my friends and relatives to eat out but they won't hear of it. "You must really be American now if you insist on eating out so much. Besides, you have to taste my (insert name of favorite dish)." And so I've been gorging myself on couscous, pastilla, rghaif, mechouis, escargot, all sorts of fish, and drinking glass after glass of mint tea. When we do go out to the beach or downtown for the day, they won't let me buy the food no matter how much I protest.
Over the meals, people talk about Hicham El Guerrouj's incredible performance at the Olympics, about the upcoming census, and about Iraq and the U.S. elections. I can honestly say that the only time I've heard such ardent Bush-bashing was back home, in Portland.

I don't want to offend her family and friends, but isn't that a very ironic last line?

Time For A Truce?

Thanks to Dhimmi Watch, which points out an OpEd article in Lebanon's Daily Star, by the hand of Mark LeVine, associate professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture and Islamic studies at UC.

The government paper supports John Kerry, who promised the Arab world 'Dramatic change' if he's elected President in November. LeVine jumps on this, and offers a suggestion.

A Truce.

It is time for the United States to declare a truce with the Muslim world, and radical Islam in particular.

This may sound like a naive, even defeatist statement in the context of the 9-11 Commission Report's reminder that the United States remains very much at war with "Islamist terrorism" and the ideas behind it. Yet a truce (Arabic hudna) rather than an increasingly dangerous "clash of civilizations" is the only way to avoid a long, ultimately catastrophic conflict.

But here's the kicker:

And it's up to Europe to be the good broker.

Wow. Rather than giving a real alternative strategy here, he simply states that to avoid a long conflict with our enemies, we should just bow before them, and all will be good again. That's not a solution, that's surrender. His reasoning for it goes like this:

Indeed, there is no chance for a halt in the "war on terror", or any fundamental change in US foreign policy as long as George W Bush is president. Even if John Kerry wins the presidential election this November, the possibility that he might initiate such a transformation is slim. However, there is one difference - at least rhetorically - between the two possible presidencies: Kerry has made a point of saying that he would "listen" to European allies and strive to build a common approach to combating terrorism.

European leaders face the threat of an increasingly bloody conflict with Muslim extremists thanks to the continent's imperial past in the region and, more important today, their perceived support for US policies in Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq. They would be wise to suggest that president Kerry call a truce so that the United States, the European Union, and more broadly the "West" can have the time collectively and publicly to explore the root causes of the violence against them that emanates from the Muslim world - something the 9-11 Commission should have, but did not, do. At least there's a chance Kerry might listen, especially if the war in Iraq continues to spiral out of America's control.

He does point out correctly that the Europeans, if given half a chance, would give anything to just be left alone, without any guarantees for future safety of her continent. Remember, its history is rife with examples of appeasing a strengthening enemy, blindly hoping that it will all go away if we just give them what they want. Chamberlain, and recently Zapatero in Spain, are good examples. And the fact that Osama Bin Laden has offered Europe a truce only underscores this. Though they did not take him up on it the last time, I believe this had more to do with the fact that with President Bush in the White House, there would be nothing to gain from it. With a President Kerry covering their cowardice with a new doctrine, Europe's momentary steadfastiness won't last long.

His truce offer itself is a riot. Not only does it include a complete kneefall before Islamists everywhere, it also only seems to carry obligations for the US and Europe. LeVine asks nothing from our enemies, except to maybe (though he does not mention this) please stop killing us. It also leaves Israel alone in the world, a small price, like Czechoslovakia once was, for peace in our time.

From the US and European side, a meaningful hudna with Islam would include (but not be limited to) the following steps:

First, just as most every mainstream Muslim personality has condemned Muslim extremism, the next US president must be prodded by his European counterparts to take the important psychological step of admitting US responsibility for the harm decades of support for dictatorship, corruption and war have caused ordinary Muslims, especially in the Middle East.

Second, the US, the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should halt all offensive military actions in the Muslim world and outline a serious plan for the removal of troops from Muslim countries, including Afghanistan and Iraq. (These could be replaced, where necessary, by robust United Nations peacekeeping forces or UN-assisted transitional administrations.) The hunt for Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and related terror networks would then be transformed from a war of vengeance into what it always should have been: a vigorous international effort led by the US, the UN and, where relevant, European and other governments to apprehend, prosecute and punish people and groups involved in the September 11, 2001, assaults and similar attacks.

Third, all military and diplomatic agreements and aid to Middle Eastern countries that aren't democratic or don't respect the rights of the peoples under their control should be suspended. Yes, this means for Israel as well as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other "allies" and "partners". This is crucial to stopping the regional arms race and cycle of violence that make peace and democratic reform impossible.

Finally, the hundreds of billions of dollars that would have been devoted to the "war on terror" should be redirected toward the kind of infrastructural, educational and social projects the 9-11 Commission Report argues are key to winning the "war on terror".

It contains two poignant contradictions, both related to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. In his first point he states that going after Bin Laden in Afganistan would be acceptable under this truce, but in the same point he also states that all Western troops would have to be removed from Muslim lands. So how would we go after Bin Laden then? By serving him with a soebpena?

Secondly, he states that the West would need to sever all ties with any repressive or undemocratic Middle Eastern country (which means all, save maybe a future Iraq and Afghanistan, although a troop pullout will have both countries run either by Iran or the Taliban within no time). But with whom do we sign the truce then? The Islamists themselves who also oppose these regimes? Who, under point one, are fair game to go after?

It's capitulation. It freaks me out to think that LeVine actually teaches this crap.