IT PAYS TO LISTEN TO YOUR PARENTS

It looks like David Hicks's will soon go before a GITMO military tribunal deemed unfair by some:

Mr Rudd says Prime Minister John Howard should act to ensure a fair trial for Hicks, who has now been held in detention by the US Government for three years following his capture in Afghanistan.

"Our position throughout has been that US military tribunals do not provide a fair trial and it's time the Howard Government resolved this matter once and for all," he said.

"This has been the subject of mishandling for over three years now and frankly it's got beyond a joke."

A three-judge panel found unanimously in favour of the Bush administration, ruling that the Guantanamo detainees are not covered by the Geneva Conventions and that the commissions are a competent tribunal to hear the charges against them.

They found that the detainees do not have rights in the US civil system. It means the military commissions set up to try detainees can go ahead.

Just like your mother always told you, hanging out with the wrong people can get you in trouble. Funny, the older I get, the smarter my parents were.

JUSTIFYING THE LONDON ATTACKS

Mundher al-Adhami, writing in the Guardian, cries for the victims but does not condemn the London bombings. Al-Adhami sees the bombings as understandable, if not justifiable, blowback:

The pictures of Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine, with their dust and grime, might be different to the pictures of the London bombs, but they represent a continuity. The war of revenge and collective punishment has arrived in London. And it has its own rationality. Don't give me the nonsense about why do they hate us. They don't.

The response to the neo-colonial adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq should surprise no one. Islamist extremism and terrorism, unknown in Iraq before occupation, now fights side by side with the more measured Iraqi resistance. It responds with callous bombs there, and now in the west.

The spirit of revenge becomes more planned, merging with nationalist or faith ideology such as al-Qaida's, and the targets become more diffuse. Perhaps even in the west, identification with innocent people hit by bombs and napalm - their voices unheard and names unknown - in remote lands of the prophets makes for a holy madness among susceptible youngsters.

As other suicide bombers have said, they may regret the loss of innocent lives in their political, murderous acts - but they atone with their own lives and hope God forgives them. The logic is clear: your security is only assured if ours is. If our women and children are killed, then your women and children are killed.

How then to account for the 32 Iraqi children – mentioned in passing in the article's introductory paragraph – killed earlier in the week by a Baghdad suicide bomber? These children and their families were already the victims of foreign aggression themselves – in al-Adhami's terms – and had probably not ever done anything to warrant a revenge attack. This attack, as with the London attacks, was nothing more than an attack by a smaller, less powerful group on the majority. It's politics at its most violent.

Even though they'd never admit it, the lefties at the Guardian quietly admire those committed enough to their politics to give their lives for the cause.

ROVE GUILTY, FACTS AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE

The Washington Post acknowledges in an editorial that not nearly enough is known about Karl Rove's involvement in the Plame affair to judge that he acted improperly or illegally:

But much is still unknown, and Democratic demands that Mr. Rove be fired immediately seem premature given the murky state of the evidence.

The editorial then proceeds to make a circumstantial case for Rove's guilt, concluding:

Whether Mr. Rove or others behaved in a way that amounted to criminal, malicious or even merely sleazy behavior will turn on what they knew about Ms. Plame's employment. Were they aware she was a covert agent? Did they recklessly fail to consider that before revealing her involvement? How they learned about Ms. Plame also will matter: Did the information come from government sources or outside parties?

It may be that Mr. Rove, or someone else, will turn out to be guilty of deliberately leaking Ms. Plame's identity, knowing that it would blow her cover. Or officials may have conspired to cover up a leak or lied about it under oath. For now, however, it remains to be established that such misconduct occurred.

The "or even merely sleazy" bit is a classic.

TRUE CONFESSION

Everybody seems to hate it but I actually enjoy Spam.

JOB APPROVAL

Real Clear Politics (average):

President George W. Bush

Approve 47.8% – Disapprove 48.2%

Congress

Approve 31.4% – Disapprove 58.2%

If Congress got on with its work, Bush could get on with his.

HIGH ON MORE THAN LIFE

Tests of toilets at the European Parliament reveal traces of cocaine:

The quantities found in MEPs' toilets imply regular use, according to the German TV show revealing the findings last night (14 July).

"Some of the quantities found there would have caused a police drug dog to respond", said pharmacologist Professor Fritz Sorgel from the Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research in Nuremberg (IBMP), who analysed the samples.

In total, 41 of the 46 surface swabs taken at European Parliament buildings A to H in Brussels contained traces of the highly-addictive drug.

In one room the concentration was so high that there was only one possible explanation - cocaine had been consumed there just before the sample was taken.

We should cut these guys some slack, they probably need the cocaine to keep up with the work. What, exactly, does the European Parliament do?

ROOT CAUSES DELUXE

Salma Yaqoob, national vice-chair of Respect and chair of Birmingham Stop the War Coalition, writes in the Guardian:

Because what is undeniable is that the shoddy theology - no matter how "unIslamic" and easily condemned by most Muslims - is driven by political injustices. It is the boiling anger and hurt that is shaping the interpretation of religious texts into such grotesque distortions. Such extreme interpretations exist only in specific political circumstances - they certainly do not predate them, and the religious/political equation breaks down if there is no injustice to drive it.

This leaves British Muslims in a very difficult place. To bring in these wider questions requires them to dissent from the government line. This is difficult for them, keen as they are to avoid further marginalisation. However, if Muslim leaders succumb to the pres sure of censorship and fail to visibly oppose the government on certain foreign policy issues, the gap between the leaders and those they seek to represent and influence will widen, increasing the possibility of more dangerous routes being adopted by the disillusioned.

This cycle of violence has to be broken. By confining analysis to simple religious terms, however, politicians are asking the impossible of our security services as well as Muslim leaders. No number of sniffer dogs or sermons denouncing the use of violence against innocents can detect and remove the pain and anger that drives extremists to their terrible acts. The truth is that shoddy theology does not exist without a dodgy foreign policy.

The essense of Yaqoob's commentary is this: terror attacks such as those in London are unacceptable but are understandable and are bound to recur unless Britian changes its foreign policy. All power to the few.

HEY GRINGO, GIVE US YOUR COUNTRY

I haven't been to Mexico since driving from Austin to San Miguel de Allende in the 1970s. Back then it was common knowledge that the only way to make it through Mexican customs and immigration was have plenty of $1 notes to hand out: no bribe, no cooperation. Things haven't changed, although the required bribes are now be much bigger:

On Tuesday, five days after the bombings on the London transit system refocused Congress and the American public on the threat of global terrorism, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that "No border security is possible without Mexican cooperation" and that "there can be no cooperation [from the Mexican government] without some sort of immigration reform package." Castaneda, now a professor at New York University, went on to describe immigration reform as amnesty for all Mexicans living illegally in the U.S., the admission of some 5 million additional Mexican citizens to the U.S. over the next ten years, and massive increases in U.S. aid to that country.

In exchange for the admission and legalization of millions of Mexicans, and billions of dollars in U.S. assistance, Castaneda said that Mexico would offer "tough" but "non-coercive" assistance in the effort to prevent terrorists from entering the U.S. via Mexico. Castaneda conceded that Mexico has lost control of its own southern border, and cannot verify the true identities of people to whom it has issued ID documents.

"Jorge Castaneda is not some obscure voice from Mexico's distant political past," observed Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "He served as foreign minister in the current Mexican administration. It is imperative that the Fox government issue a formal repudiation of Castaneda's remarks and assure the American public that their cooperation in the war against terrorism will not come at the price of extortion."

Which reminds me of a near incident while driving in Mexico. I had stopped and filled up with fuel at a petrol station out in the middle of nowehere – one of those last-fuel-for-X-miles spots. After I had paid for the fuel and was about to start up, the attendant – who had several scruffy looking mates in tow – came up to the open window of the car and noticed the Grundig multi-band radio sitting on the passenger seat. "Nice radio", he said. "How much did you pay for it?" I lied to him that the radio hadn't cost much. To which he replied, "Why don't you give me the radio?" I firmly and calmly told him no, started the car and drove away. The only reason I was able to firmly and calmly resist this guy's intimidation was the industrial size spray-can of Mace I had quietly retrieved from the door-pocket with my left hand. There's a moral in there somewhere.

PRICK HAS GUTS

Can't stand the man but it took courage to stand in an open car during a parade:

Mr Chirac stood in an open jeep at the Champs Elysees parade commemorating the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 - the start of the French revolution.

Protecting the event has been a priority since a gunman tried to kill Mr Chirac during the 2002 parade.

LEFTY SCIENCE

Science may not be biased but science magazines certainly can be:

DESPITE the intelligence failure that led the Bush administration to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the Pentagon is pressing ahead with the development of technologies designed to destroy WMDs.

So, because multiple agencies around the world were wrong about Iraq's WMDs, that means no other country has, or will have, WMDs that might be warehoused deep underground? What does one have to do with the other?

CHITTY THINKING

Karl Marx was the run-away winner of a recent poll, on the greatest ever philosopher, at Britain's Melvyn Bragg Radio 4 show, In Our Time. Andrew Chitty who teaches the UK's only MA in Marxist philosophy explains the result:

"This shows that philosophy should take Marxism seriously. It is possible he won because Marxists organised a mass vote; they're much more organised than Hegelians, for instance.

"But I think it's more likely that people understand that in this increasingly capitalist world Marx gives us the best vision with which to understand that world. Marx talks about capital in a philosophical way - he's unique in that."

Marxists understand the world? About the only thing they understand is the utility of violence.

KING OF THE CHICKEN-KILLERS

Harm Kiezebrink.

Better we get them before they get us.

CAUTION: MAY CAUSE LEFTARDATION

Journalist, aspiring author and blogger Anthony Loewenstein continues to post bullshit. His latest credibility killing effort bears the simple title "Iraqi dead":

An Iraqi humanitarian organisation is reporting that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the beginning of the US-led invasion in 2003. 55 per cent of those have been women and children under 12, according to Dr. Hatim al-'Alwani, chairman of the Iraqiyun humanitarian organisation in Baghdad.

Loewenstein's link leads to a short article credited to UPI – and picked up by a number of reputable news organisations – at Information Clearing House:

Mafkarat al-Islam reported that chairman of the 'Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-'Alwani, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged 12 and under.

'Iraqiyun obtained data from relatives and families of the deceased, as well as from Iraqi hospitals in all the country's provinces. The 128,000 figure only includes those whose relatives have been informed of their deaths and does not include those were abducted, assassinated or simply disappeared.

The number includes those who died during the U.S. assaults on al-Fallujah and al-Qa'im. 'Iraqiyun's figures conflict with the Iraqi Body Count public database compiled by Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. According to the Graduate Institute of International Studies' database, 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since March 2003. No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued by the Pentagon, which insists that it does not do "body counts." The Washington Post on July 12 reported that U.S. military deaths in Iraq now total 1,755.

The original source of this story, Mafkarat al-Islam (Islam Memo), is not a reputable news organization. It supplies "news" that is picked up by sites well outside the MSM. In short, Mafkarat al-Islam cannot be considered reliable.

A Google search for the supposed humanitarain organization Iraqiyun produced too many hits to be useful as Iraqiyun (Iraqis) is used by interim President Yawir al-Ghazi for his political bloc. A revised search for Iraqiyun plus Alwani (Iraqiyun's named head) produced only 33 results, all linking back to the original Mafkarat al-Islam article. I could find no indication that Iraqiyun exists as an independent humanitarian organization in Iraq, or anywhere else for that matter.

So, Loewenstein's original post is bullshit, and so is his update:

An international research organisation in Switzerland claims that US troops have killed 39,000 Iraqi civilians since the beginning of the war and 100,000 Iraqis have died since the US invasion.

Loewenstein's link is again to Information Clearing House, this time to an unbelievable article originally from The Journal of Turkish Weekly:

The US invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime has cost 100,000 Iraqi civilian lives. An international research organization in Switzerland said US troops killed 39,000 civilians since the beginning of the war.

The organization indicated there were far more civilian casualties than the number announced as the "Iraqi Body Count." US troops' direct fire or clashes have claimed 39,000 Iraqi civilians' lives.

With suicide attacks and other accidents, the death toll amounts to 100,000 civilian dead in 28 months. The number of the losses of US and other coalition forces for the same period is 1,937.

So, Loewenstein has posted on and linked to an article that cites an unnamed "international research organization in Switzerland" as the source of an Iraqi body count. Very slack researching.

Just to tie off the loose end, this Swiss based international organization is apparently the Graduate Institute of International Studies, which, through its Small Arms Surveyhelped fund, the Iraq Lancet Study. It has reworked the Lancet data to come up with revised figures:

Nearly 40,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the US-led invasion, a figure considerably higher than previous estimates, a Swiss institute reported.

The public database Iraqi Body Count, by comparison, estimates that between 22,787 and 25,814 Iraqi civilians have died since the March 2003 invasion, based on reports from at least two media sources.

No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued, although military deaths from the US-led coalition forces are closely tracked and now total 1,937.

The new estimate of 39,000 was compiled by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies and published in its latest annual small arms survey, released at a UN news conference.

It builds on a study published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, last October, which concluded there had been 100,000 "excess deaths" in Iraq from all causes since March 2003.

The Swiss institute said it arrived at its estimate of Iraqi deaths resulting solely from either combat or armed violence by re-examining the raw data gathered for the Lancet study and classifying the cause of death when it could.

Its 2005 small arms survey generally concludes that conflict deaths from small arms have been vastly under-reported in the past, not just in Iraq but around the globe.

Caution: reading Loewenstein may cause leftardation. (If you read his stuff and take it seriously you're already leftarded, you poor, unfortunate thing.)

Update: As previously noted, on 13 July Loewenstein posted this:

Is the US government hiding the true figure of US casualties in Iraq? The Government of Puerto Rico thinks so during investigations of its own war dead. They claim over 4000 US soldiers have been killed during 799 days of fighting.

If he had read his linked source carefully he would have realised that the 4,000+ figure was not for US forces but was for forces serving under US command, comprised of 1,649 US uniformed troops, 88 from Great Britain, 92 from other coalition countries, 238 private contractors and at least 2,000 Iraqi soldiers. I pointed this out to him in his comments section but he was reluctant to correct his post. Under pressure from commenter Gilbert, he eventually agreed to amend his original post, which came out:

Is the US government hiding the true figure of US and Iraqi casualties in Iraq? The Government of Puerto Rico thinks so during investigations of its own war dead. They claim over 4000 US and "coalition" soldiers have been killed during 799 days of fighting.

It seems to me that Loewenstein should have, for the sake of transparency, noted that he had corrected his original incorrect post. The way it stands, readers have to read his comments in order to be aware that the post was corrected. Tricky.

NORMAL, VERY RELIGIOUS, MODEL YOUTHS

Nasra Hassan interviews a failed suicide bomber:

“How did you feel when you heard that you’d been selected for martyrdom?” I asked.

“It’s as if a very high, impenetrable wall separated you from Paradise or Hell,” he said. “Allah has promised one or the other to his creatures. So, by pressing the detonator, you can immediately open the door to Paradise — it is the shortest path to Heaven.”

.....

“What is the attraction of martyrdom?” I asked.

“The power of the spirit pulls us upward, while the power of material things pulls us downward,” he said. “Someone bent on martyrdom becomes immune to the material pull. Our planner asked, ‘What if the operation fails?’ We told him, ‘In any case, we get to meet the Prophet and his companions, inshallah.’

“We were floating, swimming, in the feeling that we were about to enter eternity. We had no doubts. We made an oath on the Koran, in the presence of Allah — a pledge not to waver. This jihad pledge is called bayt al-ridwan, after the garden in Paradise that is reserved for the prophets and the martyrs. I know that there are other ways to do jihad. But this one is sweet — the sweetest. All martyrdom operations, if done for Allah ’s sake, hurt less than a gnat’s bite!”

.....

None of the suicide bombers — they ranged in age from 18 to 38 — conformed to the typical profile of the suicidal personality. None of them was uneducated, desperately poor, simple-minded, or depressed. Many were middle-class and held paying jobs. Two were the sons of millionaires. They all seemed entirely normal members of their families. They were polite and serious, and in their communities were considered to be model youths. Most were bearded. All were deeply religious.

Blowing yourself up and taking as many of the enemy with you as possible, the pinnacle of achievement for the normal but very religious.

ENCOURAGING SIGNS

Paul Brown, writing in the Guardian, takes Bush to task for not signing up the US to reduced emissions but is encouraged by the willingness of the other G8 leaders to do more:

So where does the world go from here, onwards to destruction, or is there a chance of reprieve? The encouraging signs were that everyone at Gleneagles, apart from Bush, was ready and willing to do more.

Uh, shouldn't those wanting to do more first deliver on the commitments already made?

Europe is the citadel of hypocrisy. Considering Europeans' contempt for the United States and George Bush for not embracing the Kyoto Protocol, you'd expect that they would have made major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions -- the purpose of Kyoto. Well, not exactly. From 1990 (Kyoto's base year for measuring changes) to 2002, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, increased 16.4 percent, reports the International Energy Agency. The U.S. increase was 16.7 percent, and most of Europe hasn't done much better.

Here are some IEA estimates of the increases: France, 6.9 percent; Italy, 8.3 percent; Greece, 28.2 percent; Ireland, 40.3 percent; the Netherlands, 13.2 percent; Portugal, 59 percent; Spain, 46.9 percent. It's true that Germany (down 13.3 percent) and Britain (a 5.5 percent decline) have made big reductions. But their cuts had nothing to do with Kyoto. After reunification in 1990, Germany closed many inefficient coal-fired plants in eastern Germany; that was a huge one-time saving. In Britain, the government had earlier decided to shift electric utilities from coal (high CO2 emissions) to plentiful natural gas (lower CO2 emissions).

On their present courses, many European countries will miss their Kyoto targets for 2008-2012. To reduce emissions significantly, Europeans would have to suppress driving and electricity use; that would depress economic growth and fan popular discontent. It won't happen. Political leaders everywhere deplore global warming -- and then do little. Except for Eastern European nations, where dirty factories have been shuttered, few countries have cut emissions. Since 1990 Canada's emissions are up 23.6 percent; Japan's, 18.9 percent.

As always, talk is cheap.

THE PLAME AFFAIR

Just One Minute has everything you need to know, just keep scrolling down.

SO, WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?

Sperm-competition expert. On your marks ...

A NEW LOW

What the fucking hell is wrong with people who think this is how to get into heaven?

One eyewitness, Mohammed Ali Hamza, says US forces turned up in the Al-Jedidah district to warn residents to stay indoors because of reports of a car bomb in the area.

"Children gathered round the Americans who were handing out sweets. Suddenly a suicide car bomber drove round from a side street and blew himself up," he said.

"I was at home. I heard the explosion. I rushed outside to find my son. I only found his bicycle," said Abu Hamed, whose 12-year-old son was killed in the attack.

He was speaking from Kindi Hospital where hundreds of distraught parents are mingled in the hallways, shouting and screaming.

He says he found his son in the hospital morgue.

"I recognised him from his head. The rest of the body was completely burnt," he said.

Hassan Mohammed, whose 13-year-old son also died, is angry at insurgents for attacking civilians.

"Why do they attack our children? They just destroyed one US Humvee but they killed dozens of our children," he said.

"What sort of a resistance is this? It's a crime."

Are we all clear now why we must win?

MURDER MISCLASSIFIED

It appears that a gang of young, British street thugs has attacked and killed a Muslim man guilty of nothing more provocative than going to the neighbourhood shops. Police are not willing to speculate on the reason for the attack, refusing to classify it as Islamophobic:

Superintendent Dave Colbeck, of Nottinghamshire police, said: "It would be inappropriate to comment on the possible motive.

"It is a localised incident and we are not looking at it as anything other than an isolated incident."

Azad Ali, of the Muslim Safety Forum, is certain of the motive:

"You can't class this as racist, there was no racist abuse shouted at him, it was Islamophobic.

"It is good the police have made arrests. We are disappointed that they have misclassified it, especially after all the advice to be more alert to Islamophobic hate crime."

No matter, there is no excuse for an attack like this. As for Azad Ali's reaction, he could have at least made a passing reference to the "root causes" of such crimes.

WHO IS THAT MASKED MAN?

The real question is: what message is blogger, and frequent Anthony Loewenstein commenter, Iqbal Khaldun, sending with this photo? And, who is that on the poster in the background?

FRANCE HIT WITH RECORD FINE

France has been has fined a record €20 million by the European Court of Justice for allowing fishermen to catch and sell under-size fish. The reaction of France's National Fisheries Committee is reminiscent of the spread the blame taddling of a primary school-aged child:

"Tonnes upon tonnes of small fish are unloaded in Spain and Portugal. There is fishing over and above the quotas in Scotland, Britain and elsewhere, and you never hear anything about it. People always point the finger at France", Pierre-Georges Dachicourt said on behalf of the organisation, according to France Info radio.

Pointing the finger at France and giving France the finger are two different things.

TERRIBLE NEWS RECEIVED, ACTION REQUIRED

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, reacts to the news that British born Muslims staged the London suicide attacks:

"We have received today's terrible news from the police with anguish, shock and horror.

"Our own children are said to have been involved in last week's horrific bombings against innocent people.

"We reiterate our absolute commitment and resolve to helping the police bring to justice all involved in this crime of mass murder. Nothing in Islam can ever justify the evil actions of the bombers."

Now, who in the British Muslim community is going to do what to address the problem?

THE TITLE TELLS YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

Britain had this coming – Phillip Adams, The Australian.

Sick fuck.

ROVE RESIGNS

Ignorance is no excuse.

LEFTARDED THINKING

Australian blogger Anthony "Leftard" Loewenstein reckons the Financial Times is spot on in claiming that the Islamists hate us for what we do, not for who we are. Thus, it is up to us to do something about it:

"Although we do not know for sure who carried out Thursday's vicious attacks on London, it was very likely part of the loose and protean franchise of fanatics inspired by 9/11 and its architects, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. But we cannot wait for the precise answer. We need now to engage fiercely with the substance of the problems that are proliferating jihadi terrorism. We need to find ways of isolating this minority before they make any further inroads into the Muslim mainstream.

"The most important thing to recognise is how the great democratic wave that freed east and central Europe, Latin America and swaths of sub-Saharan Africa over the past two decades ran into the sands of the Middle East, leaving the Arabs marooned in tyranny. That was in no small part because the US and its main allies shored up local despots in the interests of stability and cheap oil.

Yeah, it makes perfect sense for Muslims to attack the United States, Britain and bars in Indonesia frequented by Australians in order to liberate the oppressed of the Middle East. The gutless pricks go for the softest targets they can find.

Update: Another Loewenstein gem:

Are UN forces committing massacres in Haiti? This report, completely ignored in the Western media, indicates yet another mission of the UN's "war on terror" in the poverty-stricken nation.

The report, accessed via his link, is not from a news organisation, it's from the highly partisan HaitiAction.net. And, the story hasn't been ignored, it was covered by CNN, Newsday, The New Zealand Herald and lots of other news outlets.

In an earlier post, Loewenstein recycled the Jews-knew-about-the-London-attacks-before-they-happened rumour by linking to a Justin Raimondo piece at Antiwar.com:

Netanyahu was no doubt a target of the bomb plot – why else would the terrorists bomb an underground station directly below the hotel where the investment conference was going to take place? If Israeli intelligence knew about the attacks days in advance, and only thought to let Netanyahu in on the secret "minutes" before the bombs went off – well, that's a little hard to believe, now isn't it? (Oh, wait … maybe not.)

I don't believe that Scotland Yard knew diddly-squat about the terror plot, either days or minutes before the bombs exploded, although what seems beyond dispute is that Netanyahu was warned beforehand. The question is, who warned him?

As far as I can work out, Netanyahu was meant to speak at the Great Eastern Hotel, near one of the underground explosions but not directly above any of them. Not only that, if someone was trying to kill Netanyahu with a bomb, setting it off deep under a hotel is a pretty iffy way to get him. The terrorists go for sure things, not long shots – failure would make them look bad.

There has been no proof offered that Netanyahu, or any other Jew, knew about the attacks in advance. Raimondo's a fuckwit and so's Loewenstein for linking to his weak-arsed blame-the-evil-Jews bullshit.

Update II: Here's the latest from Loewenstein:

What's the chance of Bush's svengali, Karl Rove, resigning over the Valerie Plame scandal? We now know, finally, that Rove did indeed reveal the CIA agent's name to journalists. That's a crime.

As proof, Loewenstein links to a Sydney Morning Herald article that fails to conclude Rove has done anything illegal, or even improper:

Although Mr Rove has now been named as identifying Mr Wilson's wife as a CIA official, it is unclear if he faces prosecution. It is illegal for someone with a security clearance to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA agent.

The email, on its own, does not make it clear if Mr Rove knew she was an undercover agent or if he had the necessary security clearance.

It's possible that Rove will eventually be shown to have acted improperly or illegally but the linked article offers no such proof. The article does not claim that Rove revealed Plame's name.

Loewenstein has also posted this:

Is the US government hiding the true figure of US casualties in Iraq? The Government of Puerto Rico thinks so during investigations of its own war dead. They claim over 4000 US soldiers have been killed during 799 days of fighting.

Loewenstein's post links to an article at mediachannel.org that credits the article to Coastal Post Online, MARIN COUNTY'S NEWS MONTHLY - FREE PRESS, citing its address as a P.O. Box in Bolinas, California. The iffiness of these sources aside, Loewenstein didn't even bother to read them correctly. The 4,000 figure is not for US soldiers killed, it's the total number of casualties serving under US command:

According to documents reviewed by this paper, in addition to the 1,649 fatalities among US uniformed troops, there were 88 from Great Britain, 92 from other coalition member countries, 238 reported by private contractors, and at least 2,000 from members of the Iraqi Army.

Will Loewenstein be more careful with the sources for the book he's writing? Let's hope so.

Update III: Determined to destroy what credibility he still has, Loewenstein has now posted this (my emphasis):

17 Afghan civilians were murdered by an American airstrike in late June. The Washington Post reported the story on July 5. The US military apologised for the mistake but claimed they had targeted a "known operating base for terrorist attacks."

To commenter mj, who points out that murder requires intent, Loewenstein responds:

The central question remains: how many more bombings of civilian areas, towns, and cities have to happen before an 'accident' is seen as more than that?In Israel, for example, Israel deliberately targets civilians through bombing refugee camps and firing indescriminately into the occupied territory. Palestinian death are therefore far from accidental. It's all about making a point, as twisted as that point clearly is.
Similarly in Afghanistan and Iraq. America and British are engaged in a war that involves the regular killing of civilians, whether bombing villages, or at checkpoints etc. To suggest that none of this is accidental misses the point entirely. The rules of engagement are so skewed that civilians are likely to be killed, rather than avoided.
And no avoidance of the reality will change that.

The Israelis, British and Americans have some of the best trained, best equipped and most lethal armed forces in the world. If they're targeting civilians you'd reckon they'd be able to do it just a bit more efficiently. You know, to make a point.

Thus endeth my short stint as Loewenstein Watch – trying to see things from his point of view is making my head hurt.

NEW JEWS

Mark Steyn on the possible European reaction to the Islamic onslaught:

Few European leaders have a clue what to do about this,but,as that French headscarf law and Britain’s Incitement to Racial Hatred bill and Dutch responses to the murder of Theo van Gogh all underline, mediation between what Tony Blair called on Thursday “our way of life” and Muslim values has already become a central dynamic of European political culture — a remarkable achievement for a minority few Europeans were more than vaguely conscious of pre-9/11. Meanwhile, across the borders pour not primarily suicide bombers or suitcase nukes, though they will come in the end, but ideology — fierce, glamorous and implacable. That’s the final irony of the Israelification of Europe: distressing as it may be to Continental anti-Semites, in this scenario they’re the Jews.

Diaspora anyone?

SMALL PERCENTAGE, BIG NUMBER

A leaked British government report is not encouraging:

It paints a chilling picture of the scale of the task in tackling terrorism. Drawing on information from MI5, it concludes: “Intelligence indicates that the number of British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity, whether at home or abroad or supporting such activity, is extremely small and estimated at less than 1%.”

This equates to fewer than 16,000 potential terrorists and supporters out of a Muslim population of almost 1.6m.

It only takes one fanatic with a bomb ...

Update: Daniel Pipes takes a look at the British government's report, Young Muslims and Extremism, mentioned above:

If one accepts the report’s estimate (pdf 2, p. 5) that the Muslim population of Great Britain numbers 1.6 million, then 16,000 “British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity.”

“Extremely small”? Excuse me, but that number strikes me as an extremely large.

That the British authorities do not recognize that they should worry about thousands of terrorists in their midst is reason to worry what planet they inhabit. Their waffling, myopia, and general incompetence make one despair for his country.

The four-part report is available in pdf via the Times article linked at top.

THE EASY WAY TO GET KILLED

It's not that Europeans can't see the threat, they just don't want to confront it:

Major Soeren Bach of the Danish Military Academy has described his country as a safe haven for Islamic radicals, saying: “We have decided to leave these people in peace because it is easier to do this rather than get into a legal battle with them.”

The easy way isn't the answer; now what?

BLOWBACK

William Burroughs' Baboon thinks "the terrorists" do not exist. Those we think of as terrorists are merely the disgruntled of the world providing negative feedback to those who oppress:

Other cultures were understood to be inferior when they weren’t invisible. They were definitely understood to be none of our concern. Each country did its level best to secure as large a slice of the earthly pie as it could. This was known as statesmanship. And was celebrated in history and art.

Today with global travel, instant communications and 6 billion people only fools and the very old can now take comfort in forlorn nostalgic reveries about everybody peacefully reassembling behind their own borders.

And it is the rich in countries such as the USA and the UK who have least excuse for so doing. For hundreds of years these countries have been at the forefront of expanding their economic borders with little regard for the welfare of those with whom the traded and fought.

Today we have global blowback. This is allowed by the mix of destructive technology and the now global nature of all information that allows anyone of us to grab the attention of the mightiest ruler of the most powerful nation. It has also to do with the breakdown under the pressures of economic mobility of the hierarchical nature of many societies.

There is no single malevolent group which if could vanquish, all our troubles would disappear. We pretend there were. We are hardwired to believe in scapegoats. And we recently, with the visibility of terrorist attacks, have decided that some part of the Islamic world is such a culprit.

This reap what you have sewn thing works in both directions.

FESTIVALS TALIBAN-STYLE

In March, evil, profit-motivated Arman FM staged a kite festival in Kabul to welcome in the year 1384. Much fun was had by all.

Taliban remnants have just held a festival or two of their own:

Taliban guerrillas have beheaded six Afghan policemen they kidnapped in southern Afghanistan, a provincial governor said on Sunday, a day after the guerrillas claimed to have beheaded a missing U.S. commando.

Suspected Taliban gunmen ambushed an Afghani government border patrol in the desert near the frontier with Pakistan, killing 10 soldiers and beheading their bodies, a provincial governor said Sunday.

For some this was not so much fun.

SO MUCH TO BE ANGRY ABOUT

British Muslim Anushka Asthana writes in the Guardian:

Again Britain's Muslim community is under scrutiny. The attacks last Thursday, quickly associated with 'Islamic terrorists', raised all the old questions.

Could the perpetrators be British Muslims, living among us? Could they be preaching their hatred on the roads of London, Birmingham and Manchester? Could they be targeting young men, angry about atrocities in Muslim countries across the world?

Or are we doing British Muslims a disservice by associating these people with Islam at all? Perhaps they should instead be described as extremists or criminals.

There are no simple answers to these questions. There is undoubtedly anger among Muslim youths. It is hard to find a young Muslim man on the streets of Tipton or Whitechapel who will not express anger at foreign policy in the Middle East or talk about the assault on Islam across the world. Many tell a story of someone who has suffered police brutality or convey bitterness about what they see as an attack on their civil liberties since 9/11.

Perhaps Britian's Muslim youths should consider directing some of their anger at the Islamic terrorists who make all Muslims suspect. It's a root cause thing.

THE IRAQ - AL QAEDA CONNECTION

Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn have been keeping tabs on the slowly emerging story of Saddam Hussein's links with al Qaeda. The excerpt that follows is from a long and detailed article in the 18 July 2005 issue of The Weekly Standard:

Indeed, more than two years after the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was ousted, there is much we do not know about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. We do know, however, that there was one. We know about this relationship not from Bush administration assertions but from internal Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) documents recovered in Iraq after the war--documents that have been authenticated by a U.S. intelligence community long hostile to the very idea that any such relationship exists.

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

We have been told by Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, that Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members "with open arms" before the war, that they "entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," and that the regime "strictly and directly" controlled their activities. We have been told by Jordan's King Abdullah that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him. We have been told by Time magazine that confidential documents from Zarqawi's group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell. We have been told by one of those jihadists that he was with Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war. We have been told by Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and a longtime CIA source, that other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden's top deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999.

All of this is new--information obtained since the fall of the Hussein regime. And yet critics of the Iraq war and many in the media refuse to see it.

Read the whole thing.

Via: Democratic Underground – It's worth following the link to see the DUer's reaction.

LEFTIES TALK ABOUT LONDON ATTACKS

George Galloway on the price of blood:

What our leaders want is liberty for us, but only up to a point, and they're ready to take that away if it suits them, but no liberty for anybody else. And the people in the Muslim world can see it very clearly. They know that nobody gave a toss about the thousands who were killed in Fallujah. Nobody in the British Parliament raised any qualm about the American armed forces reducing Fallujah to ash and killing thousands of people. Yet, they go into the kind of emoting that we saw yesterday about the deaths in London.

I'm different from that, and most British people are different from that, when you reach them. The blood of everyone is worth the same. God didn't differentiate between a dead person in London killed by sheets of flying glass and red-hot razor sharp steel and someone who died the same death in Baghdad. These deaths are the same. And war of the kind that we have seen -- unjustified, illegal, based on lies, in Iraq, is terrorism of a different kind. Just because the President, who ordered it is wearing a smart suit rather than the garb of an Islamist in the Tora Bora doesn't make their orders more legitimate than orders if they were given from bin Laden.

So tell us, George, who are you taking orders from?

In the same interview, George Monbiot on the cost of terrorism:

As far as its impact on Britain is concerned, I am worried that we are going to see the loss of certain civil liberties as a result of this. We have seen with, for example, the PATRIOT Act in the United States, that there has been quite a curtailment of some fairly basic human rights, including the right to free assembly and the right to free expression and, of course, there has been a great deal of very intrusive surveillance and policing of the Muslim community and indeed parts of the non-white community in general in the U.S., some of which appears to have very little to do with anything which could reasonably be regarded as dealing with terrorism. And I'm concerned that that's going to come over here. I'm concerned that the draconian restrictions on protest that we already have in this country could be extended. Already we have seen several people saying that this provides justification for the introduction of a new identity card in Britain. We don't yet have an identity card, but they're talking about an identity card which includes biometric identification, and plenty more besides, which could turn into quite an oppressive state tool if we're not careful.

The left's always raving on about lost freedoms in the US but specifics are never offered. Perhaps Monbiot should be more concerned that the average Briton's image is captured 300 times by surveillance cameras every day.

Update: My thanks to Tim Blair for the link. For those interested in the slowly emerging picture of the Saddam Hussein - al Qaeda connection, go here (it's via Democratic Underground, oddly enough).

TRADE OFF

Terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann on respecting the due process rights of known bad guys:

There's a group of people like this and it's actually unfortunate, because this same Moroccan they are looking for in London, Mohamed Guerbouzi, his presence has been known for quite a bit of time and unfortunately British authorities simply couldn't do anything about it because they couldn't extradite him to Morocco and they couldn't get enough evidence to arrest him on a British warrant.

So even though they knew this individual was a Moroccan Islam Combatant group commander and knew he was living in the heart of London, he has been able to exist there with no consequences for years now. Only now are we looking for him in the consequence of this latest attack.

Now let's see, whose rights should be preserved, the due process rights of bad guys or the right of Britons to continue breathing? The Falklands would be the ideal spot for the British gulag.