THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS

The Arab boycott, established by the Arab League in 1951 as an economic tool to hurt Israel, is a dying animal. Ask Aramex.

The company, which provides delivery services around the world, is commonly used by Arab and Israeli companies who want to exchange goods without upsetting any Arab port officials. The company provides customers with US mailing addresses where Israeli products can be sent. It then exchanges the Israeli postalstamped packaging for a US-stamped package and sends it on to its Arab destination.

So while some Arab ports will not accept goods marked "Made in Israel," if you take off the sticker and send it through another country, the deal is done.

"Besides Syria, the Arab boycott is now just lip service," said Doron Peskin, head of research at InfoProd, a consulting firm for foreign and Israeli companies specializing in trade to Arab states. ... Today, however, even the most hardline Arab countries are officially dropping the official primary level of the boycott to join trade organizations and agreements.

The most significant "fall" was of Saudi Arabia, which agreed last September to drop the primary boycott of Israel to join the WTO. ... Various historical events weakened the boycott further. Egypt made peace with Israel in 1978. In 1991, Kuwait agreed to rescind its secondary and tertiary boycotts after the US freed it from Iraqi occupation. ... In 1996 the OAB stopped convening.

Today, trade between the Jewish state and the Arab world remains "undercover," but goes on regularly. (The products cannot be identified as Israeli or they may end up back on the ship.).

Dubai Ports World, the combined United Emirates (UAE) port management company for the Gulf, has stepped up its challenge to win the operating rights of six major ports in the US, by claiming it has strong business ties with Israeli shipping company Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. ...

Asked in an interview last week with “CNN” reporter Wolf Blitzer whether Dubai Ports World was doing business with Israel while the UAE refused to recognize Israel, [CEO Ted] Bilkey replied, “One of our very sound customers is Zim line. It’s the largest shipping company. And the president of that company is very close to our company and supports us, because we have good relations with all of our clients.

“We handle their operations in a number of ports throughout the world because it’s good commercial business for us. They wouldn’t come to us unless we did a good job,” added Bilkey.

Blitzer: “Does the emir know this?”

Bilkey: “Absolutely.”

Dubai to Copy Israeli Hi-Tech Model - Thursday, June 17, 2004:

While striving to become the regional financial center of the Middle East, Dubai has decided to develop its hi-tech industry according to the Israeli model, MA’ARIV reported. Senior Dubai officials have approached Israel with the intention of developing joint technology projects.

Dubai officials met with Israeli businessmen during the regional economic conference in Jordan and expressed interest in cooperation with leading Israeli hi-tech companies, which have not yet expanded to the Gulf. Dubai representatives showed excellent understanding of the Israeli legislation governing manufacture and the hi-tech industry.

They also expressed willingness to visit Israel, since the Dubai government does not oppose such visits.

Turns out the "political groundswell" of Democrats and some Republicans in Congress was not the result of national security, but in fact the almighty dollar. The Miami port operator Eller & Co. ... sent a team of lobbyist[s] to D.C. to turn the screws. The MSM got it wrong yet again.

The London-based Dar al-Hiyat newspaper reported on Tuesday that Iran would allocate $250 million to the Palestinian Authority to replace the funding withheld by Israel and the United States following Hamas' election victory. In an interview with the newspaper, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said that he officially approved the Iranian support for the new Hamas-led PA.

Europe's "Little Ice Age" may have been triggered by the 14th Century Black Death plague, according to a new study. Pollen and leaf data support the idea that millions of trees sprang up on abandoned farmland, soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This would have had the effect of cooling the climate, a team from Utrecht University, Netherlands, says. The Little Ice Age was a period of some 300 years when Europe experienced a dip in average temperatures.

"Paper: Coast Guard Has Port Co. Intel Gaps." The Associated Press begins breathlessly:

Citing broad gaps in U.S. intelligence, the Coast Guard cautioned the Bush administration weeks ago that it could not determine whether a United Arab Emirates-based company seeking a stake in some U.S. port operations might support terrorist operations.

Of course, if you continue reading, you find:

The Bush administration said the Coast Guard's concerns were raised during its review of the deal, which it approved Jan. 17, and that all those questions were resolved. ***

The Coast Guard said the concerns reflected in the document ultimately were addressed. In a statement, the Coast Guard said other U.S. intelligence agencies were able to provide answers to the questions it raised.

"The Coast Guard, the intelligence community and the entire CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States) panel believed this transaction received the proper review, and national security concerns were, in fact, addressed," the Coast Guard said.

There are only one or two universalists in the Democrat Party - which is home base for ALL post-modernists and pacificists. Status quoists, realists and opportunists make up strong minorities in both parties. If Bush wasn't a universalist then we wouldn't have EVER invaded Iraq. He is truly LEADING the Free World in The Long War. Only the universalists are hawks; all the other camps are basically doves.

The way things look now, opportunists will gain seats in the 2006 election. The result might be less bold actions - and more appeasement - in the Long War.

If - in 2008 - the USA doesn't elect a POTUS who is a universalist (and with Blair's chosen successor Gordon Brown being an unkown), well.... then the Free World will retreat (by letting Assad stay in power, letting Iran get nukes, letting Kim stay in power, by financing Hamas, and by seceding our foreign polciy to the UN and the EU) - until the next big terrorist attack.

A major jihadoterrorist attack HERE will make us feel like we're in a foxhole together. For a while. If at that time a "non-univeralist" is in the WH, then we will probably point fingers at each other rather than strike back as Bush did.

Because the Democrats have basically not supported the Long War, al Qaeda will do whatever it can to foment an Iraqi Civil War between now and the November election in the US - in order to try to get an appeasing/dovish majority - a DEMOCRAT majority - in one or both houses.

If they accomplish this, then I'd expect them to lauch a really MASSIVE attack against us and/or our allies - so their comrades in the MSM can spin it as a major loss LIKE THEY DID WITH TET. This will give the doves a pretext for blaming Bush and withdrawing, (like the doves did vis a vis Vietnam: They blamed LBJ and Nixon and suspended aid to the South Vietnamese Gov in 1975. This led to the Fall of Saigon, 1 MILLION Boat People, the rise of Pol Pot, and to 3.5 MILLION slaughtered by socialist genocide in SE Asia.)

Top Hamas figures Mahmoud Zahar and Saed Siyam rejected on Sunday any possible peace negotiations with Israel. Speaking in Amman, Jordan before parliament members from all over the Arab world, Zahar said that Israel was an enemy, and thus not a partner for negotiations, Israel Radio reported. He added that Hamas did not plan to renew the failed diplomatic talks with Israel.

Leaders of the main Sunni Arab political bloc have decided to return to suspended talks over the formation of a new government, the top Sunni negotiator said Sunday. The step could help defuse the sectarian tensions that threatened to spiral into open civil war last week after the bombing of a Shiite shrine and the killings of Sunnis in reprisal.

(1) "SADDAM AND 9/11": Bush asked for and received a SEPARATE authorization to attack Iraq and did NOT use the 2001 AUMF to attack Saddam. If he had belived that Saddam was connected to 9/11, then he could have merely used the 2001 AUMF. This proves that Bush never EVER DIRECTLY connected Saddam to 9/11. (There are, though, unequivocably ties between Saddam and al Qaeda and other jihadoterrorist groups.)

(2) "BUSH LIED ABOUT WMD": Neither the UNSCR#1441 or the 2002 Congressional authorization to attack Saddam limited the reasons Saddam was a threat to WMD stockpiles, but in fact contained two dozen reasons why Saddam was a threat to the USA and our allies and our interests. If Bush thought that WMD's were the only reason to go to war, then he would NOT have bothered to make sure all those other imporant points were in the resolution. Many had to do with the UNSC resolutions which Saddam had violated, and MOST of these had nothing to do with WMD.

ADDITIONALLY: Ex-Cia man Pillar - who has been getting a lot of press recently, rehashing his old vague and unsupportable charges - has recently been forced to REPEATEDLY admit that the Robb-Silberman Commission report was entirely correct when it concluded that not a single solitary intelligence officer or report was altered or adjusted in any way due to political poressure from anyone. And Pillar has also admitted that Cheney was 100% correct when he said that all intelligence agencies from all nations agreed that Saddam had WMD. Tertefore: BUISH DID NOT LIE.

(3) "SADDAM WASN'T AN IMMINENT THREAT": As to the charge that Bush lied about Saddam being an imminent threat - for without WMD stockpiles there could be no "imminence": Bush specifically argued that he would NOT wait for threats from untrustworthy tyrants like Saddam to become imminent because that would be too late.
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(4) "MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED": When Bush appeared on the deck of that aircraft carrier in front of that banner which said "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" that part of the mission which that aircraft carrier was involved in had been accomplished, as was the mission for most of the troops which invaded Iraq and deposed the genocidal tyrant Saddam.

The current fighting is against DIFFERENT forces with a different goal than Saddam, and as such it comprises what is essentially a SECOND mission: securing a self-determined pluralist democracy for Iraq. When this mission eneds - probably in 2007, then Iraq will have to maintain its security on its own. In a larger sense, we can only declare total victory in Iraq at that time.

(5) "DEMOCRACY FOR IRAQ WAS NEVER REALLY A GOAL": The very challenging goal of democracy for Iraq was EXACTLY what Bush said his ultimate goal was when he addressed the UN General Assembly in September of 2002 - a month before UNSCR#1441 was passed, four months before Saddam filed a false "fional decaration" - in ciolatiuon of UNSCR#1441, and six months before the war began. There was no "rush to war" and democracy was not an after the fact rationalization rushed into place when the ISG failed to find stockpiles. NOTE: the ISG did unequivocably determine that Saddam was in violation of most of the UNSR's which functioned as the armistice for the Gulf War.

(6) "NO BLOOD FOR OIL": It was liberal Democrat president Jimmy Carter (and not Bush, Cheney or Halliburton) who - in 1980 - declared that Gulf Oil was strategic necessity for the USA and the West, and that the USa would use any means necessary to defend its flow to the West. This became known as The Carter Dioctrine and has the same force today as it did then and as the Monroe Doctrine still has today. It is NOT a partisan policy inveernted to please oil companies; it is recognbition that the world's economy and the world's PEOPLE needs energy to survive, and the USA will guarantee that the world gets that energy. (REMEMBER: Europe and Asia get more oil from the Gulf than the USA does!)

If we won't fight to save our way of life and economy from becoming held hostage to oil-strong islamofascist tyrants, then we might as well NOT fight for anything - a position that the Left mostly endorses!

FIFTY years ago today, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave a "secret speech" at the 20th Communist Party Congress that changed both his country and the world. By denouncing Stalin, whose God-like status had helped to legitimize Communism in the Soviet Bloc, Khrushchev began a process of unraveling it that culminated in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This great deed deserves to be celebrated on its anniversary.

(1) deliver the goods or services to its people; (goods and services which the people TRAPPED under Soviet TYRANNY had recently discovered were WIDELY available in the West - recently, because of detente and because of the availability of Western TV shows in places like East Germany - and specifically shows like "Dallas" which revealed to people trapped behind the Iron Curtian that people in the Free World had better material lives than they did under a system SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to better distribute "a materially good life" to its citizens); or
(2) keep up with the US in an arms race seriously sped up by Reagan; or
(3) clamp down on genuine human liberation movements like SOLIDARITY - a genuine labor movement that developed in Poland with the help of Reagan and the Pope.

Israel’s envoy to the United Nations, Danny Gillerman, warned the Security Council on Tuesday of the new terror triangle of Syria, Iran and Hamas. Gillerman compared the terror axis to a “new plague” which could kick start “the first world war of the 21 century.”

... a gathering of people for a scholarly exchange of views on the preservation of Western liberties, can no longer take place in the free West without security measures." [... ] Ever since she was forced to leave Egypt Bat Ye’or has lived in Europe. She does not intend to leave. She feels old and tired, but she urges young people to continue resisting dhimmi status. “We should not ask the moderate Muslims to save us. We have to change the present situation ourselves. That is our duty to our children and our ancestors.”

Hamas' political leader in exile said Tuesday that Iran will have a "major role" in Palestinian affairs. ... "The Ayatollah's regime will have a major role in Palestine," Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said in a meeting in Teheran with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. "We trust Iran to help us deal with the challenges facing us today."

Thirteen people, all members of a dangerous and extremely violent gang, have been arrested following an investigation into the murder of a young Jewish man in the Paris area, French police announced Friday. ... The victim was burnt and cut on 80 percent of his body, died of his wounds as he was taken to hospital.

... the head of the gang has been identified as the 26-year-old Youssef Fofana, a Black Muslim who is calling himself "brain of the barbarians." He is already known to the police services as "extremely dangerous."...

"We think there is anti-Semitism in this affair," Rafi, Ilan's brother in law, told the European Jewish Press. "First because the killers tried to kidnap at least two other Jews and secondly because of what they said on the phone," he added. "When we said we didn't have 500,000 euros to give them they answered we should go to the synagogue and get it," Rafi stressed. "They also recited verses from the Koran. We didn't know what they were saying but the police told us."

In Bruce Bawer's new book, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, the side effects of the appeasement of Muslims by the Danish government are clear--as their government pumps more and more welfare money into the pockets of disgruntled Muslims, the rate of violence against "infidels" there increases.

Bawer points out that in Denmark, Muslims make up only 5% of the population but receive 40% of welfare outlays. Many of these immigrants are told by their leaders that Muslim law gives them the right to "cheat and lie in the countries that harbor them." They are told to view the benefits they receive as jizya--the tributes that "the infidel natives of Muslim-occupied countries are obliged to pay to Muslims in order to preserve their lives."

And the welfare offices in Denmark can be the setting for violence--termed "culture clashes" by Danish journalists. "Some clients lay waste to social security offices and hit social workers--not out of frustration but because they've learned that bullying gets them what they want. The Danish government is not repressive; welfare workers tend to be sympathetic and eager to help. Many immigrants perceive this as weakness, and exploit it, 'tyrannizing' the social workers." The Danish solution? More PC behavior--get translators to translate not only between languages but between cultures. Yeah, that will work.

On the one hand, the culture editor of Jyllands Posten eloquently explains why he published the Mohammad cartoons. On the other hand, the Telegraph reports that Muslim clerics in Britain believe that they have won the debate: "They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not."

Karen Hughes's speech at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum suggests a certain capitulation in the American government as well. Together with capitulation comes the art of saying what is referrred to in Book IV of Gulliver's Travels as "the thing which is not":

Recently, the Palestinian people had an election and voted for change. I want the Palestinian people to know that America shares your hope for a better life and your dream of a state of your own living side by side in peace with Israel, and we are working to help you achieve both. These three items demostrate why Europe is LIKELY to fall into dhimmitude, if not drfit culturally into becoming an outright Muslim continent: They are unwilling to confront the enemy.

SHANGHAI, Feb. 17 -- China is hastening to complete a deal worth as much as $100 billion that would allow a Chinese state-owned energy firm to take a leading role in developing a vast oil field in Iran, complicating the Bush administration's efforts to isolate the Middle Eastern nation and roll back its nuclear development plans, according to published reports.

The completion of the agreement would advance China's global quest for new stocks of energy. It could also undermine U.S. and European initiatives to halt Tehran's nuclear plans, possibly generating friction in Beijing's relations with outside powers.

Russia plunged deeper into the maelstrom of Middle Eastern politics yesterday, saying it might sell arms to the Palestinians after talks with Hamas in Moscow early next month. The announcement by Russia's Chief of General Staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, will outrage Israel.

Former US president Bill Clinton on Friday condemned the publication of Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) caricatures by European newspapers and urged countries concerned to convict the publishers. ...Talking to reporters after meeting Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Islamabad, Clinton said he disagreed with the caricatures and that the publication was against religious and ethical norms. He said the people’s religious convictions should be respected at all costs and the media should be disallowed to play with the religious sentiments of other faiths. He said the media could criticise any issue including governments and people, but nobody had the right to play with the sentiments of other faiths.

"... [this movie] has a number of scenes depicting US troops in Iraq in a poor light, showing them abusing prisoners, shooting innocent civilians and even being involved in the illegal trade of organs. ... Apart from recommending US troops stay away from cinemas where the movie is being screened, the order also stressed the military personal should “not to discuss the movie with anybody they do not know.” "

To claim that those [like Jihad Watch] who oppose the ideology that led to 9/11, 7/7, 3/11, the Bali bombings, and hundreds of other terror attacks are just "haters" ["Islamophobes"] is to have the telescope the wrong way round; the real haters are those who are perpetrating such attacks, and planning new ones today, in the name of Islam.

... The resistance to jihad is a struggle to defend the human rights of those who would lose equality of rights under the kind of regime jihadists would like to establish -- particularly women, non-Muslims, and ex-Muslims.

After taking "virtual control" of the entire North Waziristan province of Pakistan, Taliban and Al Qaeda have recently "declared" the establishment of an 'Islamic State' in the area and gained a major base for their operations against the US-led forces in Afghanistan, media reports said.

Gunmen on a motorcycle Monday killed a Pakistani doctor who spent six months in jail on suspicions of harboring al-Qaida suspects. Some in this eastern city blamed the United States for the shooting of Ahmad Javed Khawaja. A protest of about 500 people erupted shortly after the killing, with many shouting ''Death to America!'' as they blocked a street and set tires on fire. Khawaja was attacked while walking to his clinic after morning prayers at a mosque, said Mohammed Ali, a Lahore police official.

Like a patient with a case of hysterical blindness, the mainstream media, blunders along in its reporting of the Iraq War. Determined to be blind to anything postive or even barely suggestive of the slightest deviation from the quagmire template; the media continue to hype the negative--without context; without the slightest knowledge of military culture or tactics.

In their willful denial of reality, the media have only two acceptable formulas with which to write about military personnel: They are either (a) helpless victims of an oppressive military heirarchy who sends them into battle without training; without armor; without hope; so as to maximize their deaths; or (b) ruthless, homicidal psychopathic oppressors who mistreat women, children, prisoners and kill for the fun of it.

Pakistan's president has confirmed that "a close relative" of al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US air strike in Pakistan last month. Pervez Musharraf also confirmed for the first time that Zawahiri had been expected to be at the house targeted by the US, a military spokesman says. "Five foreigners were killed in the US attack," Gen Musharraf told tribal leaders in north-western Pakistan, the Associated Press news agency reports. "One of them was a close relative of Ayman al-Zawahri and the other man was wanted by the US and had a US$5 million (4.19 million euro) reward on his head."

Shortly after the raid, unconfirmed intelligence reports said three high-ranking al-Qaeda members were among those killed in the raid on a village in the Bajaur Agency region on the border with Afghanistan. They named Egyptian bomb expert Midhat Mursi - information on whose whereabouts carries a $5m US bounty. They also named Abdul Rehman al-Misri al-Maghribi, the son-in-law of Zawahiri and reputed head of the al-Qaeda's media operations. The third person named was Abu Obaidah al-Misri, al-Qaeda's head of operations in Kunar province, just over the border in eastern Afghanistan. US officials have refused to comment on the attack.

... it has seemed commonsensical to me that, if the president has an inherent power under the Constitution, that a statute passed by Congress can't override that power. And Carter's Attorney General knew that at the time FISA was passed and, surely, after 9/11, the president's powers would not have decreased since 1978.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he would invite Hamas leaders to Moscow, opening a crack in a wall of U.S.-led opposition to dealing with the Palestinian election winner until it recognized Israel. ...

At a meeting in London on January 30, Quartet representatives [the official backers of the "Roadmap For Peace"] said the Palestinians risked losing international aid if Hamas did not renounce violence and recognize Israel. Hamas has rejected the demand.

... U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington that the Bush administration had "contacted the Russian government about what their intentions are. ... If there are any contacts between the Russian government and Hamas, we would expect that they would send that very clear message, both in public and private, that is contained in the Quartet statement." A State Department official said Russia had not revealed Putin's plan to invite Hamas leaders at the Quartet meeting.

In a Nutshell
posted by Erik @ 5:45 PM

One can't put it much more concisely than Jane Biran:

One wonders if the Prophet Muhammad would approve of rioting, grievous bodily harm and arson.

If the answer is yes, then a depiction of his followers as violent is justified. If no, then some of his followers are causing offense to him on a daily basis.

Abu Ghraib and Cartoon Jihad

Ladies and gentleman, I am proud to call Dr. Leopold Stotch a good friend:

there are many people in America and elsewhere in the West are making statements about how the media should self-censor and not publish the Danish cartoons that have sparked several days of Muslim rioting. That’s fine, and their argument isn’t completely without merit.

However, it seems to me that these same people are precisely those who said that censoring the Abu Ghraib prison photos would be an unacceptable restriction on freedom of speech and a betrayal of the media’s allegiance to the truth.

Posted by Dr. Rusty Shackleford

...the GOP election message is: 'All we've got is fear and we're going to keep playing the fear card."

fly jets into skyscrapers; bomb Israeli pizzerias and Muslim weddings and funerals; riot and burn embassies over CARTOONS; blow up bars in Bali; behead charity workers; torch train-cars of Hindu pilgrims; destroy 1000 year old Buddhist monuments and behead Thai Buddhists; murder Russian school-children; condemn rape-victims to hanging; dress up their children as genocidal suicide bombers; deny the Holocaust; bomb subways in London and trains in Madrid; murder filmmakers; put fatwas on novelists; and generally try to establish tyranny and theocratic totalitarianism through intimidation and terror that KNOWS NO BOUNDS, AND ADHERES TO NO CONVENTIONS OF WAR.

"Man-made" global warming is the biggest threat we face; we're running out of oil and other natural resources; federal bureaucrats deliberately withheld hurricane rescue services to New Orleanians; the NSA is illegally intercepting all of everyone's international phone calls - (all 200+ BILLION yearly minutes worth!); the FBI is intimidating librarians; the pharmaceutical companies, Wal Mart and the oil companies are ripping us off BIGTIME - we have to regulate them more!; that off-shore oil-drilling and oil-drilling in ANWR would be desecrations of the environment; that the Bush Tax Cuts are destroying our economy - (and that Bush has the worst jobs record since Hoover - it's the worst economy since Hoover); that abortion will become illegal and unconstitutional if you vote GOP; and that the GOP will take away your right to have a living-will (even though ALL the Bush's have one!); Bush and the GOP are trying make America into a Christain version of the Iranian religious state.

Reagan would start WW3; there will be mass global starvation; we're going to run out of oil; NAFTA will ruin our economy; Bobby Kennedy's ol' boss Joe McCarthy was evil personified and Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were innocent; "ending welfare as we know it" will put millions of people on the streets; the Reagan tax cuts will ruin the economy; that Afghanistan was going to be a QUAGMIRE - (we weren't supposed to defeat the Afghanis since the USSR couldn't); we weren't going to be able to defeat Saddam - because the strategy was wrong - we went in too fast and our supply lines were too strung out.

Don't worry - the Domino Theory is wrong; don't worry if we take away some of your 2nd Amendment rights - gun control will lower crime; don't worry if we take away some of your 1st Amendment rights - we will take BIG MONEY out of electoral politics; don't worry - bi-lingual education and multi-culturalism won't dis-integrate our assimilated society.

"The number of annual deaths from cancer has fallen for the first time in more than 70 years, researchers announced today."

According to government officials familiar with the program, the presiding FISA judges insisted that information obtained through NSA surveillance not form the basis for obtaining a warrant and that, instead, independently gathered information provide the justification for FISA monitoring in such cases.

The most important issue in the eyes of Muslims is that Islamic values, the Islamic identity, and I think in this particular sense the protest reflect what I call a state of mind that senses internal and external danger. It's a besieged state of mind. You are attacking us continuously. This is part of you're [sic: your] war against us, against our Islamic identity....

We need to deepen the cultural, intellectual and social links between Muslim societies and Western societies. And also the war on terror -- the war on terror has done a great deal of damage to the image of the West in the eyes of the Muslim. Because [as] I suggested earlier, in the eyes of Muslim majorities, the war on terror is really a war against Islam and Muslims.

And the question is, how do you link Muslim societies with Christian societies? How do you deepen the links? How do you connect with Muslim societies? And fortunately, the cartoon controversy does not help matters. It exacerbates an already raging fire between the Muslim world and the Christian world.

Syrian ex-VP, Muslim Brothers team up in bid to topple Assad

Former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam and the exiled leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood agreed on Wednesday to join forces to topple President Bashar al-Assad.An Iranian Website, close to the Revolutionary Guard, reported that the Syrian republican guard, the elite security force that ensure the stability of regime, was placed on high alert and all leaves were cancelled, following Khaddam's recent statements against Assad's rule.

A source at Khaddam's office said the former official held talks with Ali Bayanouni, head of the Sunni Islamist group, in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday. "There was agreement on a joint vision to save Syria from the crisis that the regime has placed it in," the source told Reuters in Beirut by telephone. "It was also agreed to contact other opposition leaders inside and outside Syria to come up with a joint plan of action."

A national knife amnesty has been announced by Home Secretary Charles Clarke in a bid to halt the rise in crimes involving the weapons. Mr Clarke said the project, to allow people to hand in weapons without fear of prosecution, would run for five weeks this summer, starting on 24 May. Police forces throughout England, Scotland and Wales will be involved. ...

The announcement of the latest drive comes nearly a month after the high-profile killing of City lawyer Thomas ap Rhys Pryce, who was stabbed to death in North London on his way home from a night out. Home Office figures released in 26 January showed violent crime in England and Wales rose 4% between July and September last year.

The Home Office says the amnesty is part of a wide range of actions being taken to tackle knife crime, including toughening the law on carrying blades. Other proposals include raising the age at which people can legally purchase knives from 16 to 18 and giving teachers power to search pupils for knives at school.

[2] "The Attorney General knew ... about the NSA program when he sought the Senate’s approval for his nomination to be Attorney General. He wanted the Senate and the American people to think that the President had not acted on the extreme legal theory that the President has the power as Commander in Chief to disobey the criminal laws of this country. But he had. The Attorney General had some explaining to do, and he didn’t do it yesterday. Instead he parsed words, arguing that what he said was truthful because he didn’t believe that the President’s actions violated the law."

[3] "... this administration reacts to anyone who questions this illegal program by saying that those of us who demand the truth and stand up for our rights and freedoms have a pre-9/11 view of the world. In fact, the President has a pre-1776 view of the world. "

French police have arrested two suspects wanted in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings, a Paris radio station said. France Info radio said two Egyptians were arrested in the Paris region earlier on Tuesday, suspected of having helped another Egyptian, now in prison in Italy, whom Spain suspected of being involved in the Madrid bombings.

The Legal Arguments
In Limelight at Wiretap Hearing: 2 Laws, but Which Should Rule?

It is the sort of problem that judges confront every day. One law forbids a certain activity. The other may allow it. Which one counts?

The key issue at stake in the battle over the 12 Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad is this: Will the West stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech, or will Muslims impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately, there is no compromise: Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not.

An international team of scientists says it has found a "lost world" in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of new animal and plant species. ... "It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the group. ... "It's beautiful, untouched, unpopulated forest; there's no evidence of human impact or presence" said Dr Bruce Beehler, of Conservation International.

One of the team's most remarkable discoveries was a honeyeater bird with a bright orange patch on its face - the first new bird species to be sighted on the island of New Guinea in more than 60 years.

Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim leader Moqtada al-Sadr met Syrian leaders [IN DAMASCUS] on Monday and said the United States and Israel were trying to spread strife among Arab countries.

Sadr, who led two anti-U.S. uprisings in Iraq, expressed support for Syria, which is facing western pressure over its alleged support for rebels in Iraq and the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Baghdad - Iraqi police have arrested the fourth-rankin

g figure in al-Qaida in Iraq, state television said, while officials are investigating whether the group's leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had fled to neighbouring Iran.

The brief report on Iraqiya television yesterday identified the suspect as Mohammed Rabei, also known as Abu Dhar, and said he was No 4 in the al-Qaida. It gave no further details.

Meanwhile, a senior Iraqi security officer said the Iraqi government has been receiving information that al-Zarqawi may have moved to neighboring Iran after hot pursuit by US and Iraqi forces in western Iraq.

Dear Senator Obama:

I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership’s preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable.

Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter to me dated February 2, 2006, which explained your decision to withdraw from our bipartisan discussions.

I’m embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble.

Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won’t make the same mistake again. [...]

As I noted, I initially believed you shared that goal. But I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party’s effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness.

Again, I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn’t always a priority for every one of us. Good luck to you, Senator.

Sincerely, John McCain United States Senate

Relatives of hundreds of passengers killed when a ferry sank in the Red Sea on Friday have attacked the offices of the ship's owners. A crowd broke into Al-Salam Maritime's offices in Safaga, Egypt, and began throwing the contents onto the street. Family members also tried to storm a hospital in the town of Hurghada after it displayed photographs of bodies recovered from the sea.

NOW, ZAPATERO HAS DEFINITELY put Spain in the wrong side. With all Western countries publicly defending free speech and condemning the barbaric acts of violence after the publication of the Danish cartoons, Zapatero and Erdogan write an open letter that has been published in today's International Herald Tribune ... you won't find a single line of clear and specific condemnation for the death threats, embassy burnings, etc [in this letter]. There isn't any aknowledgement whatsoever of previous acts of violence in the name of Islam prior to the Danish cartoons, which is specially egregious considering Zapatero is the Prime Minister of a country where 192 people were killed in the name of Islam (at least apparently) almost 2 years ago. Way before any cartoon "provoked" any reaction.

the left is not motivated by a "subconscious yearning" for America's defeat, but quite self-consciously announces the defeat of America as its primary goal.

Thus a leftist author like William Blum does not think his books are being unfairly used by Usama Bin Laden to provide an ex-post-facto apologia for mass murder. Rather, my impression is that the William Blums in our country are quite confident that they have recruited the Usama Bin Ladens of the world to their banner, and believe that after Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah have contributed their small part to defeating the Beast, they will return peacefully to their caves to smoke kif while the William Blums, Barbra Streisands, and Cynthia McKinneys take the reins of power.

Unlike Cindy Sheehan, Hugo Chavez, and William Blum, on the other hand, the mass/mainstream/antique media apparatchiks must of course conceal the fact that they have enlisted in the leftist project; thus they give the appearance of merely subconsciously yearning for America's defeat.

The stupidity and blindness of the world view of the fellow travelers, useful idiots, and willing dupes are indeed astonishing.

The irony is that the efforts of those that the left hates are precisely what will, God willing, prevent the left from tasting the bitter sadness of discovering that they did not recruit the tyrants to their causes, but were used by the tyrants who would surely, coming to victory, grind them in the same infernal machine they applied to all their other victims.

At least six people were killed on Friday when gunmen opened fire at a Christian home on a mainly Muslim island in the southern Philippines, an army general said. ... three men, two women and an eight-month-old infant were killed in the attack. Six others, three of them children, survived the shooting with minor injuries. "We don't know the motive for the shooting," Aleo said.

An Italian Catholic priest has been shot dead outside his church in north-east Turkey. Police in the Black Sea port of Trabzon said they were searching for a teenage boy seen fleeing from the scene of the attack on Sunday. ... Turkish broadcaster NTV identified the priest as Andrea Santore and said he died from a single shot to the chest.Turkey has seen regular protests in recent days over the Danish caricatures of Muhammad.

HAARETZ/AP:

PA attorney general says billions may have been stolen from Palestinian coffers - The Palestinian attorney general on Sunday said a corruption investigation has concluded that senior officials in the Palestinian Authority may have stolen billions of dollars of public funds.

...Al-Meghani, who took office last September, said he planned to unveil the results of his investigation in December but delayed the announcement at the request of PA Chairman [and Fatah chairman] Mahmoud Abbas. ...Fatah was trounced in last month's legislative election, in large part because of voter anger over years of corruption.

"ALL YOUR words, pictures, cartoons, images, representations, ideas, books, thoughts ARE BELONG TO US."

[In case you don't remember: "THE fast-food chain, Burger King, is withdrawing its ice-cream cones after the lid of the dessert offended a Muslim. The man claimed the design resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah, and branded it sacrilegious, threatening a 'jihad.]

Upsurge in violence ahead

Hamas is launching violent attacks against Israel. Four family members, including a toddler, were injured when a Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit their home in Kibbutz Karmiya, in the western Negev, on Friday afternoon.

Hezbollah forces attacked an Israel Defense Forces post on the Lebanese border on Friday, two days after troops shot dead a Lebanese shepherd in the area.One IDF soldier was lightly injured in the attack.

I think it is no coincidence that these acts of violence are occurring with the issue of Iran now reaching yet another, critical point. Violence is a signal being sent to Israel and the West. Diplomatic pressure on Iran will prompt a violent response. Expect more attacks in Iraq next. - Ed Lasky [contributor to THE AMERICAN THINKER] 2 03 06

The "PARIS INTIFADA" was supposedly started (that is, if you ask a local Muslim!) because a few Arab Muslim youths were chased by the police into a train-yard where they were "accidentally" electrocuted. This was just an excuse - a trumped up reason for them to try to intimidate the French - and by extension us, The Free World.

The so-called "SECOND INTIFADA" - which Arafat initiated after declining to accept all the territories and half of Jerusalem from Barak- was merely a pretext for continued war against Israel. This proved to most observers (from Barak to Dennis Ross) that Arafat never really wanted peaceful co-existence or a negotiated two-state solution, and merely used OSLO as a Trojan Horse, (as Bibi and Arik had always said. YUP: THEY WERE RIGHT!).

Separate, independent nationhood for Arabs in the so-called "occupied territories is just a pretext. Meshal - the head of Hamas - admits this. He admits that Hamas wants all of Israel to be subsumed into the ummah (see below). In fact, one cannot possibly argue against this because the PLO was actually founded BEFORE 1967, before what's presently called "occupied territory" was even "occupied." To the islamofascists of the PLO - and Hamas - ALL of Israel is on Arab Muslim land and all of Israel must be erased. Ahmadinejad and Binladen and Zarqawi and Zawahiri merely say what most others believe and won't say.

The so called insurgency in the Sunni provinces of Iraq is an intifada too; it's "THE SUNNI INTIFADA" - and it isn't really about American occupation, either. All that the so called insurgents REALLY want is to re-establish an islamofascist state.

And Algerians have been fighting jihadoterrorism for a decade; hundreds of thousands of Arab Muslims have died in this conflict. (That's HUNDREDS OF TIMES more Arabs than have been killed by Israelis!). "THE ALGERIAN INTIFADA" is not merely about the islamothugs trying to establish a Taliban-like state in Algeria. That's just their immediate, LOCAL aim.

And there's a THAILAND INTIFADA, and a FILIPINO INTIFADA and there are little intifada's all over the globe. Each seemingly inflamed by LOCAL issues but all really part of the global aspirations of jihad. GLOBAL JIHAD. They want to re-establish the Caliphate from Spain to the Philippines. And place it under extremist rule. Along the way, they will kill or convert - OR THREATEN INTO DHIMMITUDE - everyone who gets in their way.

In the Danish media he is quoted as saying he is against the widespread boycott of danish goods in the middle east.

An hour later on Al Jizeera TV he says that he thinks it is a great thing that the arab nations and people defend islam through the boycott.

France Soir said it had published the cartoons to show that "religious dogma" had no place in a secular society. ... The paper said it had decided to republish them "because no religious dogma can impose itself on a democratic and secular society".

The offices of the Danish newspaper that first published the caricatures, Jyllands-Posten, had to be evacuated on Tuesday because of a bomb threat. ... Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated this week in the Gaza Strip, burning Danish flags and portraits of the Danish prime minister.

Saudi Arabia has recalled its ambassador to Denmark, while Libya said it was closing its embassy in Copenhagen and Iraq summoned the Danish envoy to condemn the cartoons.

The editor, Jacques LeFranc, had published the controversial material to demonstrate freedom of the press and solidarity with Danish editors, who printed 12 cartoons showing the Islamic prophet Mohammed in various comic poses.

The owner of France Soir, an Egyptian, Raymond Lakah, said he fired LeFranc to demonstrate "respect for the intimate beliefs of an individual" - apparently a reference to religious beliefs.

The American media stood up and took notice when an improvised explosive device grievously injured an ABC News crew Sunday. In Iraq, and throughout the military, there is sympathy and concern for anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt, but there is also this question:

"Why do you think this is such a huge story?" wrote an officer stationed in Baqubah, Iraq, Monday via e-mail. "It's a bit stunning to us over here how absolutely dominant the story is on every network and front page. I mean, you'd think we lost the entire 1st Marine Division or something. "There's a lot of grumbling from guys at all ranks about it. That's a really impolite and impolitic thing to say ... but it's what you would hear over here." ... "The point that is currently being made (is that) that press folks are more important than mere military folks," a senior military officer told UPI Tuesday.