CRACKDOWN DRACONIAN

Cynthia Banham, Mark Coultan and Mark Metherell write in the Sydney Morning Herald:

The US and Britain are staging a draconian security crackdown to defend against terrorist strikes - and Australia is preparing to follow their lead.

As John Howard warned the West was locked in a 19th-century mindset inadequate to deal with 21st-century terrorists, police in Britain demanded new powers to detain suspects without charge for three months, instead of the present 14 days. At the same time, authorities in New York started random searches of people using the subway system.

Yikes! What else is in store for us?

The so-called library clause, allowing the Government to go to a secret court to seize the personal records of suspects from libraries, businesses, hospitals and other organisations, and another permitting roving wire-taps on suspects as they switch between phones, will be renewed for 10 years instead of being made permanent.

Oh no, not the dreaded library clause. Life just won't be worth living.

Update: Thanks to Tim Blair for again linking. Go here to read about the Jewish connection to the police assassination of an innocent man in London.

REASSURING AND DISTRESSING

The Daily Telegraph has commissioned a YouGov poll of British Muslims' attitudes in the wake of the 7 July London bombings. Some one in four of those surveyed are sympathetic to the attackers with only 6% thinking the bombings were fully justified:

Six per cent may seem a small proportion but in absolute numbers it amounts to about 100,000 individuals who, if not prepared to carry out terrorist acts, are ready to support those who do.

How many men with bombs would it take to bring Britain to a standstill?

SIMPLISTIC GENERALISATIONS AVOIDED

Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka recently visited Zimbabwe on a two week fact-finding mission for the UN. She looked into Operation Murambatsvina ("Get Rid of Filth"). A report (full report pdf here) has been issued:

The report ... held the government "collectively responsible" for the urban renewal operation in which an estimated 700,000 people have lost their homes, their livelihoods or both.

The program, which has affected a further 2.4 million people, was carried out in "an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering," said the report, which called for an immediate end to further demolitions.

While noting that the Mugabe government must share responsibility for the "serious suffering" caused by the operation, Ms Tibaijuka declined to hold the president personally accountable, blaming instead an unidentified group of government advisers.

"I was not sent to apportion blame," she said, pointing to a "mixed up chain of command" and warning against simplistic generalisations.

Arguing that a charge of crimes against humanity may be difficult to sustain, the report called on the international community to encourage the Zimbabwean government "to prosecute all those who orchestrated this catastrophe."

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who appointed Ms Tibaijuka to lead the mission, said her report was "profoundly distressing," but said the priority of the international community should be urgent humanitarian assistance rather than censure.

In other words, big fucking deal.

Update: On Saturday I do my mom's shopping – she lives in a retirement home and doesn't get out much. So, I quickly assembled the post above before going out, without more than a quick look at Tibaijuka's report.

Annan's right, the report is "profoundly distressing" but no more so than all of the other meaningless UN reports that produce no action. The UN's all about producing paperwork, not action.

The title for Section B of the report pretty much sums up the burueacratic thinking behind the report:

Scope, Extent and Impact of the Operation and Capacity of the Government of Zimbabwe and the Humanitarian Community to Respond

The government of Zimbabwe creates a humanitarian disaster and the UN examines the capacity of the government – and the international community – to respond to the disaster it created. What a productive use of time and resources.

LOOKING FOR LOVE

Why was David Hicks in Pakistan and later Afghanistan? Fellow traveler Mamdouh Habib knows:

"I believe he is a man who was trying to find his life outside Australia," he said. He was trying to get married.

Well, that explains everything. This Hicks photo was obviously meant to impress local chicks.

LITERALLY LOONY

Blogger and former Sydney Morning Herald journalist Antony – no "h" – Loewenstein is writing a book (follow link and scroll down to "The way forward is alternative") about Israel/Palestine, to be published by Melbourne University Press. Given his less than firm grasp of some of the fundamental – no pun intended – aspects of Islam, his book should make an unenlightening read.

The other day, in a post titled "The toady's blindness", Loewenstein heaped scorn on Piers Akerman for stating, in an article in the Telegraph, that the Koran exhorts Muslims to violence:

All those sections in the Bible about death, stonings, murder and incest clearly read like a children's fairy tale. No wonder Akerman is Howard's favourite commentator/toady. ABC TV's Insiders calls him a "highly experienced journalist and a columnist." Notice the omission of respect. Why the hell is he on that show again? Yet another tortuous bow to "balance."

Nothing refuting Akerman's claim, just nasty rambling nonsense. In response, I posted a comment quoting from bin Laden's original fatwa which in turn quoted the Koran as justification for killing Americans. Loewenstein responded:

Since when do the vast, vast majority of Muslims, or Christians for that matter, take their holy books literally? Basically, nearly, never. We can always quote extreme comments in the Bible or Koran (or Torah), but how it's interpreted is the main issue, surely....

To which I responded:

Is it possible to be a Muslim and not accept the Koran as the literal word of God?

Loewenstein responded:

As possible as being a Christian and not taking the Bible as gospel. People of many faiths are much more complex than simply living by, or ignoring, their chosen books....

So, according to Loewenstein, Muslims can take the Koran with a grain of salt.

Muslim Irshad Manji, author of "The Trouble with Islam Today", thinks I've got it right, which means – shock, horror – Loewenstein has it wrong. Manji in the Los Angeles Times:

I believe thursday's bombings in London, combined with the first wave of explosions two weeks ago, are changing something for the better. Never before have I heard Muslims so sincerely denounce terrorism committed in our name as I did on my visit to Britain a few days ago. We're finally waking up.

Except on one front: the possible role of religion itself in these crimes.

Even now, the Muslim Council of Britain adamantly insists that Islam has nothing to do with the London attacks. It cites other motives — "segregation" and "alienation," for instance. Although I don't deny that living on the margins can make a vulnerable lad gravitate to radical messages of instant belonging, it takes more than that to make him detonate himself and innocent others. To blow yourself up, you need conviction. Secular society doesn't compete well on this score. Who gets deathly passionate over tuition subsidies and a summer job?

Which is why I don't understand how moderate Muslim leaders can reject, flat-out, the notion that religion may also play a part in these bombings. What makes them so sure that Islam is an innocent bystander?

What makes them sound so sure is literalism. That's the trouble with Islam today. We Muslims, including moderates living here in the West, are routinely raised to believe that the Koran is the final and therefore perfect manifesto of God's will, untouched and immutable.

This is a supremacy complex. It's dangerous because it inhibits moderates from asking hard questions about what happens when faith becomes dogma. To avoid the discomfort, we sanitize.

So, Loewenstein is sanitzing Islam to remove aspects he doesn't want to see. Since he can't get this fundamental aspect of Islam right it's impossible to take anything he writes about Islam seriously.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

If only the dreaded Jews would do us all a favour and march lemming-like into the sea, we wouldn't have incidents like this:

A Palestinian rocket aimed at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip fell short on Thursday, killing a Palestinian boy when it hit his home at the edge of a crowded refugee camp, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

Medics said a 13-year-old boy was killed and his 7-year-old brother critically wounded by the rocket fire in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, where Israel plans to evacuate all of its settlements starting in mid-August.

The death could further inflame tensions between militant groups fighting Israel and Palestinian security forces who last week intervened to try to stop rocket fire at Israel, prompting clashes with the Hamas militant group.

DEMOCRATS' HIDDEN AGENDA, ANNIHILATION OF THE SPECIES

NewScientist.com news service, billing itself as The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service, currently features an anti-US article headlined: Hiroshima bomb may have carried hidden agenda. The article reads in part:

The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was meant to kick-start the Cold War rather than end the Second World War, according to two nuclear historians who say they have new evidence backing the controversial theory.

Causing a fission reaction in several kilograms of uranium and plutonium and killing over 200,000 people 60 years ago was done more to impress the Soviet Union than to cow Japan, they say. And the US President who took the decision, Harry Truman, was culpable, they add.

"He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species," says Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington DC, US. "It was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity."

According to the official US version of history, an A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and another on Nagasaki three days later, to force Japan to surrender. The destruction was necessary to bring a rapid end to the war without the need for a costly US invasion.

But this is disputed by Kuznick and Mark Selden, a historian from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, US. They are presenting their evidence at a meeting in London on Thursday organised by Greenpeace and others to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the bombings.

Very loaded language for a science news service: New Scientist should stick to science and leave politics and history to others.

The decision to use the bomb, and indeed, how to use the bomb, were not easy ones, with lots of factors to consider. Japan was, for all practical purposes, defeated well prior to the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But, Japan had not yet surrendered and there were serious doubts that it would do so unless invaded. Thus, immediately after the defeat of Germany, the US was eager for the Soviets to become involved in the invasion of Japan. By the time the bomb proved workable the US government was no longer so keen for Soviet involvement, having observed Stalin's duplicitous behaviour in Europe.

Using the bomb hastened the Japanese surrender, made invasion unnecessary and kept Soviet forces out of Japan. In the end many thousands more lives were saved by the bombs than were lost through their use. If using the bombs also sent a message to Stalin, great.

HUNG LIKE A NEANDERTHAL

If the likeness reflects reality, Neanderthals were pretty well equipped:

A stone phallus 28,000-years-old has been discovered in a cave in Baden-Wuertemberg in southern Germany, the University of Tubingen said on Wednesday.

In assembling 14 stone fragments found last year in the Hohle Fels cave, archeologists rebuilt the phallus, which is 20 centimetres long and three centimeters wide.

No wonder right-wingers are thought of as Neanderthals.

AUSTRALIA LOVABLE BUT ANNOYING

The Independent has a list of 20 things the Brits love about Australia and another list of 20 things that are maddening:

Lovable: Rolf Harris and Germaine Greer.

Maddening: Vegemite and Rupert Murdoch.

There seems to have been some sort of inversion when these lists were compiled.

What does Antony Loewenstein see in the lists that I don't?

The Independent doesn't know if it loves Australia or finds us irritable.

Australians are irritable? That explains the involvement in Iraq and more troops for Afghanistan.

OUTING A MOLE

The inimitable – why would anyone in their right mind want to? – Mark Morford produces yet another great big grab-bag of shit containing this nugget:

In sum, one could argue that Rove, as part of a multitentacled stratagems to help Bush lie America into war, intentionally blew the cover of an underground CIA agent (Valerie Plame), and did so merely as revenge, as a smear tactic against Plame's husband, who dared suggest, way back when BushCo was downright desperate to mangle CIA intelligence and fabricate any excuse possible to force us into this unwinnable Iraq war, that Saddam might not actually have any WMD at all.

So, as it turns out, Rove revealed Plame as a CIA mole. Underground ... CIA ... mole ... get it?

Anyway, do yourself a favour and read the whole Morford article, it's laughs from start to finish.

SUPREME COURT NOMINEE ROBERTS

If you're looking for a round-up of Roberts related news, try Real Clear Politics.

TAKING SIDES BY NOT TAKING SIDES

According to cbc WATCH, a "mind your language" internal memo recently made the rounds at Canada's national public broadcaster, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation:

'Terrorist' and 'terrorism': Exercise extreme caution before using either word.

Avoid labelling any specific bombing or other assault as a "terrorist act" unless it's attributed (in a TV or Radio clip, or in a direct quote on the Web). For instance, we should refer to the deadly blast at that nightclub in Bali in October 2002 as an "attack," not as a "terrorist attack." The same applies to the Madrid train attacks in March 2004, the London bombings in July 2005 and the attacks against the United States in 2001, which the CBC prefers to call "the Sept. 11 attacks" or some similar expression. (The BBC, Reuters and many others follow similar policies.)

Terrorism generally implies attacks against unarmed civilians for political, religious or some other ideological reason. But it's a highly controversial term that can leave journalists taking sides in a conflict.

By restricting ourselves to neutral language, we aren't faced with the problem of calling one incident a "terrorist act" (e.g., the destruction of the World Trade Center) while classifying another as, say, a mere "bombing" (e.g., the destruction of a crowded shopping mall in the Middle East).

Use specific descriptions. Instead of reaching for a label ("terrorist" or "terrorism") when news breaks, try describing what happened.

For example, "A suicide bomber blew up a bus full of unarmed civilians early Monday, killing at least two dozen people." The details of these tragedies give our audience the information they need to form their own conclusions about what type of attack it was.

Excuse me for a minute while I go throw up.

Via: Clear and Present

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The ultimate response to an Islamist terrorist attack:

Rep. Tom Tancredo refused Monday to back down from his statement Friday suggesting that the United States might respond to a radical Islamic terrorist attack by bombing Muslim holy sites.

Strangely, a similar option was long ago recommended by Australian Peter Layton:

Nuclear threats traditionally have been handled using deterrent strategies. In this case, a declaratory policy could be devised based on the threat of retaliation if an attack occurs in the West by nonstate actors using the Arab way of war. In such a circumstance, there could be a strategy of instant, graduated response: nuclear strikes against several of the capital cites of the Middle Eastern nations that long have demonstrated support for this method of war. The response's intensity and discrimination would vary based on the severity of the WMD attack. This approach would be a policy of deterrence through the threat of brutal and immediate punishment of particular societies.

Unfortunately, this would play right into bin Laden's hands.

REALISM'S REWARD

The left often prefers to see things as they want them to be, not as they are:

As the head of Drummond Middle School in Bradford, where 90 per cent of pupils were Asian, Mr Honeyford was concerned about the consequences of encouraging children to cling to their own ethnic group rather than integrate.

In a series of articles published in the Right-wing Salisbury Review in the early 1980s, he criticised Bradford city council's policy of educating ethnic minority children according to their own culture, predicting that the move would create divisions between white and Asian communities.

At school, where languages such as Urdu, Gujurati and Hindi predominated over English, Mr Honeyford tried to introduce a uniform but he was opposed by the local council, which judged that such a move could be racist. Concerned that "we were getting nine-year-olds who had never sat in the same class as a white child", Mr Honeyford wanted to impose racial integration - if need be, by busing in white pupils from across the city.

His views provoked an outcry among the anti-racism lobby. Some picketed the school and Mr Honeyford was subjected to personal abuse and accused of racial prejudice - leading to his early retirement in December 1985 to save his family from further harassment. He wrote later that he was told he had been forced out because his attitudes were "racist" and his insistence on integrating Asian children was "dangerous and damaging".

Alternatively, multiculturalism can be deadly.

Via: Clear and Present

MUTICULTURAL MADNESS

Mark Steyn:

It was the Prime Minister's wife, you'll recall, who last year won a famous court victory for Shabina Begum, as a result of which schools across the land must now permit students to wear the full "jilbab" - ie, Muslim garb that covers the entire body except the eyes and hands. Ms Booth hailed this as "a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry". It seems almost too banal to observe that such an extreme preservation of Miss Begum's Muslim identity must perforce be at the expense of any British identity. Nor, incidentally, is Miss Begum "preserving" any identity: she's of Bangladeshi origin, and her adolescent adoption of the jilbab is a symbol of the Arabisation of South Asian (and African and European) Islam that's at the root of so many problems. It's no more part of her inherited identity than my five-year- old dressing up in his head-to-toe Darth Vader costume, to which at a casual glance it's not dissimilar.

But, the promoters of multiculturalism mean well.

Read the whole thing.

WEALTHY WOMEN

Not only do they outlive men, they're smarter with money:

Research published last month showed that there are now an estimated 360,000 women in Britain who are worth half a million pounds or more each.

Between them, they own assets worth almost £300bn and their numbers are expected to increase rapidly. It is estimated that by 2025, women will own 60% of the nation's personal wealth.

There are currently 25% more women millionaires aged between 18 and 44 (47,355 women compared with 37,945 men). In over-65s women millionaires outnumber men by just under 4,000.

Hmmm, if only I was a bit younger, and fitter, and better looking ... oh, nevermind.

MULTICULTURAL MISTAKE?

A Macquarie University associate professor's views on immigration are causing quite a stir:

An associate professor in the Department of Public Law, Andrew Fraser, claims that African migration increases crime, says HSC results point to a rising ruling class of Asians and wants Australia to withdraw from refugee conventions to avoid becoming "a colony of the Third World".

Associate Professor Fraser, originally from Canada, believes cognitive and athletic abilities, testosterone and "impulse control" vary according to race, and "civilisations" should look after their own. "The fact is that ordinary Australians are being pushed down the path to national suicide by their own political, religious and economic elites."

Associate Professor Fraser wrote in an email to a Woollahra councillor, David Shoebridge, that Chinese immigration directly threatened the "social, political and economic interests of ordinary Australians and their children".

There's also this from Fraser (Drew) from a Ray Martin interview:

Ray: What is a typical Australian in your eyes?

Drew: It is the sun bronzed, blonde, blue eyed Aussie. That is what brought me down here. That is what, I would say, brought many people down here, the belief that what was really attractive about Australia, was that it was populated by Australians.

Ray: It is 20 million of us. Except that we’re not all blonde and blue eyed, we’re all colours.

Drew: I would suggest, if Australia turned into a country of 35 million people who are majority non white, it would be a much less attractive destination for migrants.

Ray: That is not going to happen. Where you live, and where we all live, is a multicultural society. We get on fine with each other. Why would you raise the spectre of crime?

Drew: It is not a matter of getting on fine, I would say that it is a matter of mutual indifference. Every time I go to Westfield Parramatta, well first of all, what I do notice there is the complete absence, well virtually of white Australians. What I do see is this polyglot mix of people who have nothing in common whatever, except the shopping experience. Do you want your Grandchildren to be part of an ethnic minority? Sub Saharan Africans have an average IQ of 70-75, that is a fact.

I've always viewed race as a dubious concept and think Fraser could be on some pretty shaky ground with his views.

That said, I can't see that dropping the "whites only" policy has greatly benefited Australia.

GERMAN COURT ORDERS AL QAEDA MAN'S RELEASE

Europe is one massive bureaucratic cluster fuck:

Germany's highest court has ordered the release of a suspected top Al Qaeda operative, citing objections to a new European Union arrest warrant that would have allowed his extradition to Spain.

The federal Constitutional Court has ruled that handing over Syrian-German businessman Mamoun Darkazanli to Spain as permitted under the EU policy would violate Germany's basic law.

German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries has condemned the court's decision as "another setback for the German Government in the fight against international terrorism".

The European Union's executive arm, the European Commission, has voiced regret that Germany has failed to implement the arrest warrant.

It has called for it to bring its national legislation into line with EU policy.

Spain accuses Darkazanli, 46, of being Osama bin Laden's "permanent interlocutor and assistant" in Europe.

Why, exactly, was this guy released?

The Karlsruhe-based court found that the EU arrest warrant offered insufficient legal protection for German citizens and must now be implemented with a new German law that allows all extradition orders to be reviewed by German judges.

The ruling will mean that all German citizens being held for extradition within the EU must be released until the new legislation is passed.

Gotta get that paperwork right, guys.

WHAT WOULD ELLEN RIPLEY DO?

David Hencke writes in the Guardian:

Britain's involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed to the terrorist attacks in London, a respected independent thinktank on foreign affairs, the Chatham House organisation, says today.

According to the body, which includes leading academics and former civil servants among its members, the key problem in the UK for preventing terrorism is that the country is "riding as a pillion passenger with the United States in the war against terror".

Yep, riding on the back of a motorcycle being driven by someone else can be dangerous. But, the report on which Hencke bases his "key problem" assertion also notes a preexisting internal problem:

By the mid-1990s the UK’s intelligence agencies and the police were well aware that London was increasingly being used as a base by individuals involved in promoting, funding and planning terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere. However, these individuals were not viewed as a threat to the UK’s national security, and so they were left to continue their activities with relative impunity, a policy which caused much anger among the foreign governments concerned. As a result of giving lower priority to international terrorism, the British authorities did notfully appreciate the threat from Al-Qaeda.

So, like the seemingly healthy unfortunates seeded with Alien* spawn who will eventually die as the evil within explodes from their chests, Britain has chosen to ignore the problem within. In comparison, while being a pillion passenger can be dangerous, it isn't necessarily fatal. And, if the evil within gets the passenger, it'll probably gnaw its way right through the back of the driver. Britain might want to consider some radical evil-removal surgery while there's still time to save the host.

* From a short review of Aliens:

The only one who makes any sense in the movie the whole time is Ripley, who keeps muttering "Nuke Them" like a macho sneering Dr Strangelove. Imagine if her sentiments were ever translated into real political terms! Gulp!

Gulp indeed.

MURDEROUS DERRING-DO

In a long article in The Boston Globe, Bryan Bender reports on studies that reveal that Iraq is indeed the front line in the war on terror but that the terrorists would not have become terrorists were Iraq not occupied. Deep in the article is a revealing choice of word:

But the impact of the foreign fighters has been enormous. They are blamed for the almost daily suicide attacks against US and Iraqi forces and have killed thousands of civilians, mostly members of Iraq's Shia Muslim majority. Their exploits have been responsible for much of the headline-grabbing carnage recently, contributing to the slide in American public support for the war.

It takes an unusual mindset to admire those who kill indiscriminately in pursuing a political agenda.

UNILATERAL ACTION TAKEN

Ignoring the EU freeze on diplomatic relations, France invited members of the Cuban government to Bastille Day celebrations:

The French embassy in Cuba invited the communist officials in order to "open frank and constructive dialogue, which is indispensable to understanding and progress", said French ambassador to Havana Marie-France Pagnier, according to AFP.

The French invitation to Cuban officials was the first of its kind in the two years since the EU froze diplomatic contacts with Havana.

The bloc made the move in June 2003, after 75 dissidents, including 26 independent journalists, were arrested and sentenced to up to 28 years in prison. Only 14 of them have been released since.

"I am sad", said Portugal's ambassador to Cuba, Mario Rodino de Matos.

"It is a success for France, but I would have preferred that the European Union keep a unified position", he added.

A non-aggression pact with Iran could be next on the agenda.

WHY KERRY LOST

He was framed.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN AT SCHOOL TODAY?

Christina Lamb visits a Pakisanti madrasah and finds bin Laden posters on the walls, an honour roll of Taliban alumni and lots of mindless students:

The teenagers I spoke to were unable to do simple calculations and had never heard of dinosaurs. They laughed uproariously at the idea that man could walk on the moon.

When I asked what they wanted to be when they graduated, they talked of becoming mullahs. One or two spoke of embracing shahadat, martyrdom, and of going to paradise with its 72 virgins, almost as though this world was just a grade to get through.

My visit was short — as a woman, although clad in an all-encompassing burqa, I had been warned I might be stoned and my questions were clearly provoking some hostility.

Oh well, it keeps them off the streets.

MULTICULTURAL EXPERIMENT GONE WRONG

The British government did more than allow an Islamist swamp to form within, it helped stock the swamp with alligators:

To frustrated foreign intelligence services, the British capital city has long been known as Beirut-on-Thames or Londonistan, a safe haven for dissident Islamic groups of varying degrees of extremism from across the Muslim world. Dissident political leaders of radical Islamic parties, firebrand clerics preaching holy war, the footsoldiers of 'jihad' in Afghanistan, Algeria and Chechnya, and the innocent refugees caught in the crossfire: all have found refuge on our shores.
There seemed to be a brutal logic to this arrangement. As long as these individuals presented no threat to British national security, MI5 and MI6 were more than happy to have them here because they were a ready source of intelligence about what became known as 'political Islam'. For the best part of a decade, from the end of the Afghan war against the Soviet Union in 1989, the arrangement appeared to work well.

Security services admit that it will take decades to fully infiltrate the swamp. Maybe it's time for an alligator round-up. Better yet, a cull.

By the way, the excerpt above is from an Observer article well worth reading.