A different war on Iran? [Updated]

Iran nuclear map, from the BBC

Once again, author Seymour M. Hersh claims we are planning to attack Iran. He gets an awful lot of press every time he writes about this but his track record is not very good (he's 0 for 5 now). He has also previously admitted to making things up. Still, his word is gospel to the anti-war crowd, who bring up the hue and cry every time the New Yorker publishes another of his articles.

Since his predictions of an overt attack haven't panned out yet, he now claims we are going the covert route, using special ops on the ground in preparation for an invasion, and inciting certain ethnic minorities against the government. He may be partially correct here; there are several nations worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions, and I wouldn't be surprised if all of them have spies in the country. However, let's be realistic; it's unlikely that US special forces could operate there for very long without detection.

And there are a couple more big problems with Hersh's version. Once again, all of his sources are 100% anonymous. The other problem is, like many other "useful idiots" in the media, he casts doubts on Iran's nuclear ambitions and their involvement in Iraq. I always wondered why some people are always quick to believe that the United States is involved in conspiracies around the world, but they always give the benefit of the doubt to nations like Iran. Why is that?

I do have one big disadvantage as a blogger. I have a Top Secret security clearance (with SCI/TK access), and come across all kinds of classified information. So there are certain stories I deliberately do not write about. Even if they also appear in the media, I don't need to take the chance that I might inadvertently divulge any classified information.

This is one story that is safe, however, because I honestly have no knowledge of any covert activities in Iran whatsoever. But I wouldn't be terribly surprised; in fact, it would be very irresponsible not to engage in espionage here, since Iran's Mullahs have supported insurgents and interfered in Iraq for several years, unnecessarily prolonging the conflict there. Additionally, of course, there is the nuclear issue.

So what could covert operations do in Iran? Here is a possible list:

1) Per Hersh, enticing minority and dissident groups to make an open break with Iran, possibly committing acts of terrorism. This tactic would be unlikely to yield appreciable results, but it could be a painful distraction for Iran.

2) Scouting out nuclear structures, so that Iran doesn't lure the West to decoy facilities in a future strike.

3) Contacting Iranian scientists, and enticing them to leave the country, or even kidnapping/killing them if that fails.

4) Contact Iranian military leaders, for information about air defenses of their sensitive sites

5) Set up safe houses for future covert ops

6) Preparations for sabotage of sensitive facilities

7) Set up an informant network to find the IED factories in Iran and shut them down

The above are entirely guesses on my part; certainly, there are dozens more possibilities.

Israel has the advantage of having a sizable minority in the country already. Other gulf nations might even be involved. But US operators would stand out like a sore thumb; any activity the US is doing are likely through a spy network and therefore relatively low-key.

Some great comments on this at Michelle Malkin's site.

UPDATE 01/07/2008 05:11:00 PM:
I should have added this report to the mix. Just two days ago, tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates demonstrated in France in support of the People's Mujahideen, a group that supports armed insurrection in Iran, and is officially listed as a terrorist organization by many nations, including the US. It's strange that the mainstream media, as well as Iranian apologists (like Juan Cole) totally ignore this story.

This also illustrates one of the problems I have with asylum laws. Wouldn't there be a far better chance of real change in Iran if those tens of thousands were in Iran instead of Europe? Demonstrating in France is all well and good, but the average Iranian probably barely noticed, if they heard about it at all.

In any case, the will for change is there - they just need the right leadership, organization, and training.



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Eight year old busted for "discrimination" in Sweden

Swedish Parliament, by Riviera Kid

A textbook example of politically correct lunacy in Sweden; you just couldn't make this stuff up:

An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party.

The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament.

The school, in Lund, southern Sweden, argues that if invitations are handed out on school premises then it must ensure there is no discrimination.

Yes, that's right - the case has gone up to Parliament, where the boy's father is also appealing the school's decision. Anti-discrimination laws sound good in theory, but this madness like this is the end result. Apparently, eight year olds don't even have the right to invite whom they wish to their own party anymore. Swedish parliamentarians must have an awful lot of free time on their hands...

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Profiles in Shame: Michael Crook

For one of the most nauseating videos you will ever see, the aptly-named Michael Crook visits the Atlantic County Veteran's Cemetery to (quite literally) spit on the graves of veterans buried there, whom he alternately calls "leeches" and "scumbags", both there and on his web site. He claims that these men, most of whom are WWII veterans, "did nothing for us".

I hate to give morons like this any more publicity, but I also want you to be aware that that people like this actually exist. He has written several books and made TV appearances based on his anti-military hysteria, as well as a string of web sites. I hope I'm allowed to question his patriotism without being criticized. It is encouraging that the video only rates one star, and the comments section is overwhemingly outraged over it.

This is a guy who decided to drop out of basic training (with multiple vague excuses) and is now jealous of those who had. He must be hard to live with such a man; he's only in his 20s and has been divorced three times.

(YouTube video found via Infidel Bloggers Alliance).

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Lightning!

As some of you might recall, I am currently in Arizona attending a military class. It's monsoon season here now, and lightning storms are in full swing. Here is just one of several spectacular shots I got from my backyard tonight.

How do you photograph lighting? There is only one way - wait for a very active storm, point your camera in a direction of your choosing, and use your autoshutter feature to take many pictures in succession until you get the shot you want. It just takes patience (and a bit of luck).

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Another "honor" killing in the UK

Yasmin Bibi Rakha was a young woman born to a Muslim Pakistani family in Halifax, UK. All she wanted was simply to exercise her fundamental right to marry the man she loved - in this case, another Pakistani named Mian Shahid Mehmood. But like too many women in Muslim families, she was already promised in marriage to her cousin from a very young age. She defied her family and married her true love anyway, the couple living like fugitives from her family until one day Yasmin's brother hired three men to kill Mehmood. All four of them were just convicted for the crime of murder.

These so-called "honor" killings happen so frequently in Europe I can hardly keep up with them; and they are only a drop in the bucket compared to such killings worldwide. Once again, I wonder why people who want to keep their cultural traditions so badly (in this case to such an extreme extent that it drives them to murder), would immigrate to the UK in the first place?

Although justice was served for the four men, it was still incomplete. Yasmin's father and mother, as well as other unnamed members of the Pakistani community, fully encouraged the killing, the father even joyously singing after Mr. Mehmood's death.

At the trial, Yasmin initially refused to testify, because she felt she was losing her entire family, first to murder, then to prison.

Honestly, Yasmin, you are better off without this family.

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Hola, Carolina del Norte

A school superintendent in North Carolina wants to create a Spanish-speaking school in his district. Once again, this is not California or New Mexico, but North Carolina:

Dissatisfied with teaching in Spanish 85 percent of the time, a North Carolina superintendent is pushing for a proposal that includes a plan for a school where Spanish is the predominant language.

Superintendent Peter Gorman pitched his proposal to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board today, with provisions to combine two of its dual-language programs and turn Collinswood Elementary into a Spanish-speaking school. Nora Carr, chief communications officer for Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, told WND the facility will help to preserve Hispanic culture.

"Preserve Hispanic culture"? Is there really any possibility of this disappearing in America anytime soon? And are there any schools in any other country on Earth trying to preserve American culture?

In any case, if the parents want their kids to go to a Spanish-speaking school where Hispanic culture is well-represented, there is a place that is perfect for them. It's called MEXICO.

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Lesbians targeted in the US Army?

Some interesting statistics at the NYT:

While women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women.

By comparison for 2006, about 35 percent of the Army’s discharges and 36 percent of the Air Force’s were women, according to the statistics.

The information was gathered under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a policy advocacy organization.

“Women make up 15 percent of the armed forces, so to find they represent nearly 50 percent of Army and Air Force discharges under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is shocking,” said Aubrey Sarvis, the organization’s executive director. “Women in particular have been caught in the crosshairs of this counterproductive law.”

Incredibly, an all-too obvious explanation doesn't even occur to Ms. Sarvis; the very likely possibility that lesbian women are far more likely to be interested in a military career than gay men. If far more sign up in the first place, then far more are going to be discharged.

When you read things like this, you should also keep in mind that the vast majority of discharges for homosexuality are voluntary admissions. In other words, people who claim to be gay (some of whom aren't even gay) in order to get out of their military contracts. In fact, this was the case in every homosexual discharge that occurred in my own units in my 15 years in the military. How do I know this? Mostly because many of them openly declared that was why they had suddenly "outed" themselves. It's now an easy out, something we don't need during wartime.

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More on Boumediene

More great minds think alike. A couple more responses to the Supreme Court's Boumediene decision (that allows every detainee to make habeas corpus appeals).

At Pajamas Media, former senator Fred Thompson points out all the rights that Gitmo detainees had before the decision - as it was, they had far more rights than they would have had under the Geneva Convention alone.

Andrew McBride, a former federal prosecutor, at Wall Street Journal virtually echoed me:

had Boumediene been decided in 1940, more than 400,000 Axis troops held in more than 500 military facilities in this country during World War II would have had a right to challenge their detention in federal court.
...
Must military personnel take notes in the field regarding the location, dress, and comportment of captives for later use in the "trials" mandated by the Supreme Court? Must a chain of custody be preserved on a firearm or bomb seized from an enemy combatant? Can a detainee file a writ for habeas corpus immediately upon arriving at a U.S. military base like Guantanamo Bay?

Indeed.

The future of war - fought by lawyers. In my opinion, many of those celebrating the decision are simply motivated by a desire to see the Supreme Court defy President Bush, rather than a real interest or understanding of the issue involved.

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Photo of the week

Photo from NY Daily News (you can click on it to enlarge)

Supermodel Kate Moss creates a stir by showing up at an art gallery in a see-through dress which left little to the imagination (at least she was wearing a thong). People are upset because - gasp - her daughter could see her breasts!

I don't see why this is a big deal. They were in an art gallery for heaven's sake - if the gallery included any paintings or sculpture there must have been plenty of bare breasts on display already. The odd thing is, that this was in Istanbul. While it is a fairly modern city, it's still in a country that's overwhelmingly Muslim and not too wild about displays of the human body.

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Martha Stewart denied entry to the UK while terrorists can stay [Updated]

Martha Stewart was denied a visa to enter the UK, due to her criminal record. But since her record is only obstruction of justice, I don't think she would be much of a danger to the British public. But anyway, it's their country so they can set the rules.

But it might be helpful if they would clarify just what bizarre rule set they are following. While they keep Stewart out, they allow convicted rapists like Mike Tyson or convicted terrorists like Abu Qatada into the country with open arms (they won't even deport Qatada after his release from jail).

Either someone at the Home Office is so paralyzed from fears of accusation of racism that they can't even do their job anymore, or they are just doing their job at random. Either way, the UK's entry system is a mess.

At least they had the good sense to keep out Omar Bin Laden (the son of Osama Bin Laden). However, he and his wife are appealing the ruling, threatening to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights. See previously here.

UPDATE 23/06/2008 12:25:00 AM:
The Daily Mail has just reported that Al-Qaida member Abu Qatada will now receive £150 ($295 US) a week in benefits from UK taxpayers for his bad back. And that's not all - his wife already gets £45,000 ($88,548 US) a year in public welfare. One might be skeptical as to whether they really even need the money; they live in an £800,000 ($1,574,582) house!

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Obama's endorsements

Barack Obama has now been endorsed by North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il, Fidel Castro, as well as Hamas. Comforting, isn't it?

Now don't get me wrong, I don't blame Obama for this. Lumping him in with communists and Palestinian terrorists would be guilt by association, and a weak association at that.

However, it does bring me to an important point. Maybe we should take a more skeptical view when people make the popular claim that Bush's policies have only made the terrorists stronger. If they were really so much stronger today, why would they want that to change?

More coverage at Michelle Malkin and Lttle Green Footballs.

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In Los Angeles, race is the very heart of the gang problem

View of LA from the Hollywood hills, by Ramon Duran

One hell of an op-ed this week in the LA Times, by Lee Baca, the Sheriff of Los Angeles county:

So let me be very clear about one thing: We have a serious interracial violence problem in this county involving blacks and Latinos.

Some people deny it. They say that race is not a factor in L.A.'s gang crisis; the problem, they say, is not one of blacks versus Latinos and Latinos versus blacks but merely one of gang members killing other gang members (and yes, they acknowledge, sometimes the gangs are race-based).

But they're wrong. The truth is that, in many cases, race is at the heart of the problem. Latino gang members shoot blacks not because they're members of a rival gang but because of their skin color. Likewise, black gang members shoot Latinos because they are brown.
...
I would even take this a step further and suggest that some of L.A.'s so-called gangs are really no more than loose-knit bands of blacks or Latinos roaming the streets looking for people of the other color to shoot. Our gang investigators have learned this through interviews in Compton and elsewhere throughout the county.

Why don't we hear more about this in the general media?

Simple answer: because it's minority vs. minority violence. If it were white vs. minority, the press would be talking about nothing else. We live in a world where even the most innocent comment made by a white person that might be construed as racist gets the full media blitz, but the real racism right under our nose is ignored because it doesn't fit the image of "racism" that the mainstream media wants to present to the world.

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Blatant political hypocrisy - caught in the act

I don't often dive into political fights, but I had to point this out. It's rare to see such a blatant display of hypocrisy.

Keith Olbermann is MSNBC's political commentator, and an open supporter of Democratic candidates. On yesterday's program, referencing attacks on Michelle Obama, he said:

It's not an unreasonable request. To ask that personal attacks against the wife of a candidate, as part of a misguided strategy to torpedo a political campaign, be off limits.

Yet just last month he said this, of the Republican candidate's wife:

So Cindy, your husband is running a fully negative campaign. He's a flaming fraud. And if you think he's clean, so are you! Cindy McCain, today's "worst person in the world"!

A little background, which largely smacks of hypocrisy as well: Olbermann was (not surprisingly) simply echoing his favorite candidate's talking points. Barack Obama is upset that people are criticizing his wife, and claming this should be off-limits for discussion. Problem is, people aren't criticizing her personally, but her statements she made on behalf of her husband while stumping for his Presidential campaign. You can't have it both ways, and Obama should be mature enough to know this; you can't send out a representative to speak for you and then declare anything they say to be "off limits" to criticism.

(Initial quotes found via Olbermann Watch).

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The future of war: battles of the lawyers

Great minds think alike. The much maligned John Yoo echoed my thoughts exactly on the recent Supreme Court decision:

In World War II, no civilian court reviewed the thousands of German prisoners housed in the U.S. Federal judges never heard cases from the Confederate prisoners of war held during the Civil War. In a trilogy of cases decided at the end of World War II, the Supreme Court agreed that the writ did not benefit enemy aliens held outside the U.S. In the months after the 9/11 attacks, we in the Justice Department relied on the Supreme Court's word when we evaluated Guantanamo Bay as a place to hold al Qaeda terrorists.
...
Soldiers will have to gather "evidence," which will have to be safeguarded until a court hearing, take statements from "witnesses," and probably provide some kind of Miranda-style warning upon capture. No doubt lawyers will swarm to provide representation for new prisoners.

How the hell can we fight wars in the future this way? The 60's band "Creedence Clearwater Revival" once sang: "I see a bad moon rising..."

Glenn Greenwald vehemently opposes Yoo's article, which alone is enough reason to take Yoo even more seriously. Conveniently, he totally ignores the passage above and the implications for the future. He also, hilariously, mentions the "innocent" Khaled El-Masri or Maher Arar to boost his case (never mind that neither of them were sent to Guantanamo or are being held by the US so their cases don't apply), and lamely tries to claim:

Many were taken from their homes. Others were just snatched off the street while engaged in the most mundane activities. Still others were abducted while in airports or at work.

Despite his attempt at making it sound like these men were simply kidnapped in white-picket-fence lands while doing charity work for homeless orphans, none of them were captured in the United States, or simply "snatched off the street" for no reason. All of them were captured either during fighting in Afghanistan or traveling to/from the country when their names were on a terror watch list. He also totally ignores people like Saleh Ali Al Ajmi who were released only to conduct terrorist attacks later.

Now, one point on which I agree is that there should be a vetting process and that detainees should know how long they are going to be detained. But there is such a process, and as far as the length of detention goes, it's a little difficult to figure out when lawsuits are filed on an almost daily basis to have the Gitmo detainees released immediately!

But at least Greenwald has an argument; Andrew Sullivan is far more lame - he resorts to the race card! I am not joking:

Defending suspected terrorists' human rights isn't popular - especially when those suspects are foreign, have brown skin and speak a different language

How many of these "brown skin" guys have you invited to live in your home, Andrew?

George Will, in a more thoughtful column, defends the decision, albeit rather weakly, but he still ignores the dangerous comparisons to previous wars and the problems this poses in the future.



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BBC says bloggers are in danger in the US?? What the hell?

I read this article by the BBC about blogger arrests on the rise, and was going to say something about it anyway. But Michelle Malkin, more astute than I am, noticed this line in the article:

The report predicted that the number of blogger arrests in 2008 would exceed the 36 seen in 2007 thanks to greater popularity of blogging as a medium, greater enforcement of net restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US.

The US? That statement is nothing short of outrageous. I don't think it's a typo; the quote has been there all day.

Lumping the US in with China, Pakistan, and Iran? Exactly what do they base that on? Who has been threatened in the US for simply blogging? In the report that the BBC references, there are three (out of 64) arrests mentioned in the US; one was related to terrorism, another to child pornography, and the last one for failing to turn over evidence to police, which really wasn't a blogging issue. The article also says:

The report pointed out that it is not just governments in the Middle East and East Asia that have taken steps against those publishing their opinions online. In the last four years, British, French, Canadian and American bloggers have also been arrested.

I don't know about the US, but bloggers have been arrested in Europe for writing politically incorrect speech - see here and here, for example.

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US Supreme Court rules that Gitmo detainees can challenge their detentions in civilian court

The decision was close. Of course, the leftosphere is celebrating.

I have a feeling no one will be celebrating in the future. This might work for the current war, but what happens the next time we are in a major conflict?

We took hundreds of thousands of German prisoners during WWII. Should we have allowed every single one of them to hire a lawyer and challenge their captivity in US courts?

Does that have any precedent, and is it in any way realistic?

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Another long overdue roundup

Newly discovered Brazilian tribe

I've had one test after another this week, which is why updates are so slow. Here is a list of long overdue items, over the past two weeks:

Brazil: The photo above is a very, very rare event in the world today. A tribe in the Amazon jungle that has never had contact with the outside world. In photos, you can see red painted warriors pointing bows at the aircraft, and one black painted individual (maybe a woman?).

Ethiopia: Ethiopia is in the midst of another serious famine and drought, no doubt exacerbated by the rising price of food around the world. But there's another reason. The fertility rate in Ethiopia is 7.07- one of the highest in the world. That means that the average woman in Ethiopia has more than a staggering 7 children in her lifetime. Compare this to the United States, where the rate is only 2.27. If Ethiopia wanted to get serious about it ever being a viable nation in the future, they would take a hard look into trying to get control of their skyrocketing population growth, in a country that is already struggling simply to feed the people who are here now.

Caribbean: Barely mentioned in the papers, but in another black mark in history, the Caribbean monk seal is now officially extinct. Hawaiian and Mediterranean monk seals will be the next to go. Their numbers stand at only 1200 and 500, respectively.

Kenya: Wild lions are not so far behind the monk seals.

UK: Total vindication. Police apologize and are forced to pay a fine for unjustly prosecuting a news program for airing video of inflammatory remarks, rather than the mosque that made those remarks. I covered this story earlier here.

Maine, USA: An author makes a wildly irresponsible claim that Roosevelt and Churchill were war criminals on the same level as Hitler, and of course, some people just eat this tuff up.

Massachusetts, USA: In another chapter in the annals of zero tolerance insanity, a fourth-grader was suspended from school for bringing a shell casing to class. An empty shell casing. In other words, a small piece of metal with no value as a weapon whatsoever. A pencil is more dangerous. When school administrators interpret these kinds of rules, it would be nice if they tried to keep in mind what the reason was for these rules in the first place. I can assure you, the punishments were not supposed to be so arbitrary. I hope the family pursues legal action.

Hollywood: To some people, race is everything. Director Spike Lee recently criticized director Clint Eastwood for having no black characters his films "Flags of our fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima", both of which dealt with the invasion of Iwo Jima in 1945. The films were incredible; one dealt with the marines who raised the flag on the island, and the other was from the Japanese point of view. The problem is, people like Spike Lee want nothing less than a full racial distortion of history; the characters in the movies were people in real life - none of whom were black. Why is that so hard for Mr. Lee to understand? After Mr. Eastwood told Lee to "shut his face", Lee responded with "we're not on a plantation anymore", proving his obsession with race yet again.

Zimbabwe: In a new low, Robert Mugabe supporters burn a woman alive.

UK: Sometimes it seems as if WWII is never truly over. Another war-era bomb is found in London, this one 2,000lbs!

UK: An "asian" policeman (a sikh) wins a settlement for racial discrimination for an outrageous third time. His payments so far total £300,000 (about $580,000 US). Sounds like detective work doesn't pay nearly as much as the lucrative side job of racial discrimination complaints...

USA: As a veteran, I realize that PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) can be a serious condition. I'll also tell you it is one of the most overdiagnosed and easily faked conditions there are. Especially when it can involve disability payments. But to show how explosive the issue is, when one doctor, Norma Perez, simply asks her colleagues to be more careful in their diagnosis, all hell breaks loose, and he is forced to apologize. Absolutely shameful - on the part of the hospital for not supporting her, and on the part of VoteVets.org, and anti-war organization that has been deliberately manipulating this this issue and twisting it into a "scandal".

France: A muslim man who physically prevented a male doctor from attending to his wife during childbirth, showed incredible gall by attempting to sue the hospital for 100,000 Euros, after the child was born with severe neurological problems. The court rejected his claim, and fined him 1000 Euros instead. The child is severely handicapped. The man should have been jailed.

UK: A man moves into his new home to find a family of 20 illegal immigrants already living in his attic.

Australia: It boggles the mind - court approves a sex change operation for a 12 year old girl. Oh, and it's all taxpayer funded, of course. The father objects, but nobody is listening to him.

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Church of England finally decides to defend Christianity

It's about time. Evidentally, the crowding out in their own country has begun to take its toll: The Church of England finally criticizes their government for discrimination against Christianity and promotion of Islam [Note: The TimesOnline entire site is down at the moment. You can also read the article here]:

The authors find evidence of deep-seated hostility to the Church in particular, excluding it from important areas of policy and research – despite Mr Blair being one of the most devout prime ministers of the past century. They portray a Government committed to research into Muslim communities but barely interested in Christian involvement in Britain’s civic and charitable life.

If you think this is an exaggeration, just take a look here, here, or here, for just a few egregious of examples.

What's even more surprising is that the report was signed off by the Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canturbury - the same man who was loudly criticized for claiming that "shariah was inevitable in the UK", and praised Islam while criticizing Christians in an interview with a Muslim magazine.

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Al-Qaida right in our backyard

Several news outlets have recently commented about this website: "The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge". It's a jihadist site that cheers on the enemies of the United States and the destruction of US forces abroad. It also calls for global Shariah (Islamic law). What's worse is that it is based not in the Middle East, but right here in our own backyard. The author is a 22 year-old man named Samir Khan who lives in Charlotte, NC with his parents. His family emigrated from Saudi Arabia when he was seven years old.

In other words, he is another one of these parasites who enjoys the very freedoms of the very country he is condemning. If Sharia law is so wonderful, one wonders why he doesn't move back to Saudi Arabia to enjoy it? (I would even help him pack) Khan is able to get away with this because his site is careful not to outright call for violence against US soldiers, in order to barely stay within the limits of our nation's laws.

This quote from the site says it all:

We will never condemn them [mujaahideen - holy warriors] in order to please your hearts. We speak what is good and leave that which is evil. The honor belongs to Allah, His Messenger, and the Believers and not the disbelievers.

If what the Mujaahideen are doing is something not permissible under Islaamic Law, then we will stay quiet and pray to Allah for guidance (for them). Never will we condemn them to make you happy because they are still better than the disbelievers due to their belief in Allah and His Messenger.

In other words, even if the Islamic terrorists kill innocent people, they are not to be condemned simply because they are Muslims. That is incredibly warped and extremely irresponsible.

They claim they "speak what is good and leave that which is evil". Suicide bombings that deliberately target innocent people are evil. So are states that lock up women and suppress their health and freedom their entire lives. People who commit evil do not serve God, but Satan instead.

For a more down to earth example of their wildly irresponsible claims, on their front page right now, there is an article claiming that "millions" of Iraqi children have been killed as a result of depleted uranium used by US forces. The first problem is, they pull that number entirely out of thin air; not even the wildest of estimates have claimed that "millions" of Iraqi children have died as a result of the war, even from all causes put together. The second problem is, while it sounds ominous, depleted uranium (or DU for short) is DEPLETED. It's not significantly radioactive anymore. It's essentially a waste product of uranium enrichment process, and is used as a outershell for many munitions and armor plating, due to it's density. It was used primarily when knocking out Iraqi tanks in the early phase of the war in 2003, as well as during the Gulf War a decade before. The only danger is if you breathe in the dust after the munitions have been fired, but to do this you would have to visit a target destroyed by DU ammunition less than a minute afterward, and actively breathe in the dust. Moreover, there is nothing special about DU in this regard; inhaling any metallic dust is not good for you. It's extremely unlikely that any Iraqi children were exposed to it; and even if, by some wild chance, it made some of them sick, it certainly didn't kill "millions" of them. It's unlikely to have killed even one person. But the rumor persists, and has been a favorite of Al-Qaida for some time. I have seen it repeated on many jihadist sites over the years.



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More female bombers

Video footage of a woman blowing herself up in a crowded marketplace

In a related story to the last article, Suicide bombings by women in Iraq are on the rise.

According to Admiral Patrick Driscoll, a spokesman from Multi National Force I Iraq, said there were 18 female suicide bombers in Iraq so far this year, as opposed to only 8 for all of 2007.

There seem to be several converging factors over the increase in female bombers in Iraq:

1) Increasing desperation by Al Qaeda, which is running short on suicide-bound recruits (not surprising, considering they usually don't come back)

2) Coalition and Iraqi forces are reluctant to search women, and the abayas (black flowing robes) that women wear are very good for hiding suicide vests.

3) Many decades of war, (even before the current war) means that Iraq has a shortage of men overall, since so many have either been killed or sent to prison - leaving plenty of women alone without means of support.

Of course, it's not only limited to Iraq. Israel has seen a similar trend in the past, as well as just about every other nation in the Middle East. Expect this trend to increase in the future. Expect it to spread even farther. And expect that nations such as the UK, which don't require vieled Muslim women to have photographs on their ID cards, are going to regret that decision one day.

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Al Qaeda women fight for their "rights"

Woman in Damascus, Syria - photo by Jennifer Hayes

In the psycho bizarro world that is Al Qaeda, women are fighting for their rights to be recognized as "holy martyrs" (aka suicide bombers). Next thing you know, they will be asking for an equal amount of virgins in heaven!

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) ― Muslim extremist women are challenging al Qaeda's refusal to include - or at least acknowledge - women in its ranks, in an emotional debate that gives rare insight into the gender conflicts lurking beneath one of the strictest strains of Islam.

In response to a female questioner, al Qaeda No. 2 leader Ayman Al-Zawahri said in April that the terrorist group does not have women. A woman's role, he said on the Internet audio recording, is limited to caring for the homes and children of al Qaeda fighters.

His remarks have since prompted an outcry from fundamentalist women, who are fighting or pleading for the right to be terrorists. The statements have also created some confusion, because in fact suicide bombings by women seem to be on the rise, at least within the Iraq branch of al Qaeda.

You would think that these women would start by demanding more basic things - you know the right to work, drive, vote, seek medical care, etc, instead. But hey, priorities are priorities...

(Found via Little Green Footballs)

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Why socialists fear Italy

From Rome: African illegal immigrants selling counterfeit handbags on streetcorners - a common sight in Italy these days

Believe it or not, there are plenty of important elections going on in the world, despite the media's fanatical obsession with the Clinton/Obama rivalry (which right now is not even an election yet, but simply a party nomination). Case in point is Italy, where Silvio Berlusconi will keep his post as Prime Minister, after his "Forza Italia" (forward Italy) party handily won elections in April. The Forza Italia is considered a center-right party, but the truth is that their stance on protectionism and other issues means that they are far more akin to the Democratic Party in the United States. But to the European left, their unforgivable sin is that they actually plan to crack down on crime and illegal immigration (which is what the public overwhelmingly wants). Soeren Kern at the Brussels Journal has a scathingly brilliant and amusing article up about the sniping between Spain's socialist Party and the Forza Italia, and the socialists blatant hypocrisy in the matter:

Italian voters in April returned Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to a third term in office. The center-right leader was given a strong mandate to crack down on runaway immigration and spiraling street crime, two hot-button issues that are intrinsically linked, not just in the minds of Italians, but in those of many other Europeans too, especially in Spain.

As a result, Spanish Socialists are (rightly) worried that Berlusconi’s get-tough approach will jeopardize their own fantastical vision of turning Europe into a post-modern multicultural utopia.

It therefore comes as no big surprise that Spanish Socialist Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, who is also commonly known as Spain’s high-priestess of political correctness, recently lashed out at the no-nonsense immigration policies of the new Italian government. Her pontifical rebuke declared that the Spanish executive “rejects violence, racism and xenophobia, and therefore cannot agree with what is happening in Italy.”
...

According to an opinion poll published by the center-right Il Giornale, most Italians are weary of unregulated immigration and want to expel unemployed Roma, known in Italy as “nomads”. Almost seven out of ten Italians said they favored DNA tests and fingerprinting of all Roma for a census.

Demonizing the Opposition

Since Spanish Socialists (more often than not) have trouble winning arguments on their own merit, the preferred tactic is to demonize their opponents instead. And so De la Vega’s comments were echoed by the new Spanish Minister for Labor and Immigration, Celestino Corbacho, who felt obliged to accuse Berlusconi of wanting “to criminalize those who are different.”

Meanwhile, Spain’s newly anointed ‘Equality Minister’, the 31-year-old Bibiana Aído (who as the youngest cabinet member in Spanish history has a cumulative total of less than five years of professional work experience), took Berlusconi to task for including only four women in his 21-member cabinet (in contrast with that of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which has a female majority) and said that Berlusconi might benefit from psychological therapy in order to cure his sexual prejudices. Just for good measure, she added: “I do not know if it would be very effective. He would need many sessions.” (And Spanish diplomats wonder why Spain gets so little respect abroad.)

Then, as if on cue from the Zapatero government itself, the Spanish leftwing mass media unleashed a merciless anti-Italy propaganda campaign, not unlike the ones they usually reserve for bashing the United States. Sycophantic commentators warned that Italy was being taken over by “fascists” (Spanish leftists routinely use the word “fascist” to describe anyone who does not subscribe to their enlightened ideas) and admonished Italians to adopt Spain’s morally superior “tolerant” approach toward crime and immigration. And just in case anyone missed the point, some Spanish newspapers published trite political cartoons blending the Italian flag with a swastika.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni reacted angrily by saying: “The criticisms leveled at us I find totally unjustified and are due to ideological prejudice or a lack of information on the matter.” Franco Frattini, Italy’s foreign minister and former European commissioner for immigration said that Spain should mind its own business and that Zapatero should exert some discipline over his ministers, noting that: “Frankly, it is time to stop these [political] pitch invasions,” which are “pointlessly polemical.”

In any case, European Commission spokesperson Pietro Petrucci says that Italy had not violated any European Union laws on the free movement of labor. And Zapatero is now trying to defuse the controversy by way of linguistic gymnastics: He says his ministers have been “misunderstood”.

Spain’s Blame Game

The entire episode is oddly reminiscent of Zapatero’s visit to Mexico in July 2007, when he ended a state dinner by declaring that: “There is no wall that can obstruct the dream of a better life.” The “wall” that Zapatero was so worried about was the anti-illegal immigrant fence along parts of the 2,000 mile (3,200 km) border between Mexico and the United States, and not the 10-foot (three meter) high triple razor wire-topped fences that separate the Spain’s north African colonies of Ceuta and Melilla from those people in Morocco and the rest of Africa who have dreams of a better life in Spain.

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Indonesian tolerance rally turns intolerant

In Jakarta on Sunday, a celebration of religious diversity was a victim of that same diversity:

A peaceful rally for religious tolerance was broken up earlier on Sunday afternoon by Islamic hard-liners from the radical FPI (Islamic Defender Front) when they beat other demonstrators with bamboo sticks and calling for the deaths of members of a Muslim sect they consider heretical, witnesses said.

Some 200 Christians, moderate Muslims and members of Ahmadiyah - the Islamic group the government is considering banning - gathered at the National Monument in the nation's capital of Jakarta to celebrate the country's tradition of pluralism, said Gunawan Mohamad, a prominent magazine publisher who took part in the rally. At least 12 people were injured and four of them were taken to hospitals after members of the Islamic Defenders Front rushed the square waving flags and swinging sticks, organizer Anick Tohari said.

"Repent or die," shouted men dressed in green and white Islamic outfits as they punched and kicked bleeding protesters, video footage showed. Children and elderly women demonstrators were caught up in the clash.

This is one of the reasons I'm generally skeptical of the "diversity is strength" mantra we often hear these days.

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Iran threatens both Israel and the IAEA

Once again, an Iranian official threatened Israel. This time is was their foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki:

"As the Imam Khomeini said, if each Muslim throws a bucket of water on Israel, Israel will be erased," Mottaki told a conference in Tehran,

Is it just me, or does that sound like a threat? Interestingly, Professor Juan Cole, of "Informed Comment" who has burned all his bridges in an attempt to convince us that the Iranian President has never threatened Israel in his speeches, had no comment on this one.

This week Iran also threatened to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, since the group reported that Iran has been withholding information on its nuclear activities. This is pretty serious stuff:

The IAEA is demanding explanations on Iranian nuclear studies that include a uranium conversion project, high explosives testing and designs for a missile re-entry vehicle. These activities suggest there may have been a possible mili