#1
Like a recent photographic exhibition showing Parisians enjoying themselves under the occupation, the book's depiction of life in Paris as one big party is at odds with the collective memory of hunger, resistance and fear.
I guess it depends upon who is doing the remembering and what kind of an ax they have to grind--such as selling books.
#2
Women usually paid for their survival collaboration with the public humiliation of having their heads shaved. The men were usually summarily executed. I doubt if HRW or AI existed at the time they would have objected, since Americans weren't involved, but they would have held America responsible for 'allowing it to happen' even in areas where Americans had no control.
#4
A few reamarks: some of the more vocal collaborators had affairs with German soldiers. Male german soldiers.
"Le Point" (but that mag hardcore pro-europeist mag seems to have an axe to head against both teh Reistsnace and the Americans) tells that a number of women who has intimated with Germans were raped.
General Bigeard (who at that time was member of the SAS) was parachuted over France and tells of a communist resistance group who was of no help for fighting Germans but was first in line for shaving women. Apparently that was common.
After Liberation, the communists requisred municipal councils memebers having to be real resistants (read communists). That is rich when you remember how in 1940 the communists hlped their Nazi friends by sabotaging French tanks or had wagons loaded with supplies for the plane factories taking weeks for reaching their destinations while the Luftwaffe was cutting to pieces the French Army.
At the beginning [of the video], a Muslim man using a microphone in a moving vehicle is on such a tirade that its hard to understand what hes saying. He goes on so long and loud that I began to think this was going to be the point of the piece.
But watch all the way to the end. Observe the disturbing helplessness of the police. It is difficult not to be embarrassed for them, as they seem to have no cohesion and no ability to deal with mob behavior.
I am troubled by the extremes of reaction by the UK Police. On the one hand, the community police harass and even incarcerate the indigenous Brits for allegedly dropping an apple core on the sidewalk. On the other hand, they are seemingly helpless in the face of an aggressive crowd of immigrants who have only contempt for their authority.
This is worse than corruption. It is collapse. Corruption can be reformed, but where do you send the purported keepers of the peace for courage and judgment?
#1
Looks like that abu Izzadeen turd that was sentenced to some time in the poke. It'll probably be more like a vacation after those stories of how the Muslims have taken over the prisons.
An English-language advocate is encouraging citizens to sign a petition expressing opposition to proposed new regulations by the FCC that would amount to a backdoor Fairness Doctrine.
In a 2007 report, an ultra-liberal think tank known as The Center for American Progress issued a report called "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio." Jim Boulet of English First says its agenda was to cleverly recast the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" by using the term "localism."
"In 2007, they issued a report in which they bragged that if they could get more women and minorities to own stations, there'd be fewer stations carrying programs like Rush Limbaugh. What the regulations also do is we create a board of censors, really, who the radio station would have to meet with four times a year to listen to all their complaints -- and if they weren't satisfied, the radio station could lose its license," Boulet points out.
Unfortunately, he says, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has bought into the agenda with its "Report on Broadcast Localism and Notice of Proposed Rulemaker."
"Because the American people know how diabolical the Fairness Doctrine is, those who want to re-impose it on the airwaves and shut down programs have found a backdoor way to do it with the so-called 'localism' doctrine," Boulet contends.
One of the proposed regulations would require racial and sexual quotas for station ownership, and another would require that all "licensees should convene and consult with permanent advisory boards." Boulet says he knows what that will mean.
"These boards are going to be made up of people like the [Council on] American-Islamic Relations, The National Council of La Raza all a bunch of professional grievance mongers who will never be satisfied until programs like Rush Limbaugh are no longer on the air," Boulet explains.
According to Boulet, the review process is expected to end on June 11, at which time the FCC will decide what to do. Should the proposals go into effect, he says Congress would need to pass a Resolution of Disapproval in both the House and the Senate to void the regulations. The website keeprushontheair.com carries a petition allowing individuals to let the FCC and elected officials know of their opposition to the localism doctrine.
When Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison wanted state lawmakers to back a hefty rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach, concocting a new outfit that seemed devoted to the public interest: Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or CORE. CORE ran TV ads warning of a "California-style energy crisis" if the rate increase wasn't approvedbut without disclosing the commercials were funded by Commonwealth Edison. The ad campaign provoked a brief uproar when its ties to the utility, which is owned by Exelon Corp., became known. "It's corporate money trying to hoodwink the public," the state's Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said. What got scant notice thenbut may soon get more scrutinyis that CORE was the brainchild of ASK Public Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior partner is David Axelrod, now chief strategist for Barack Obama.
Last week, Obama hit John McCain for hiring "some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington" to run his campaign; Obama's aides say their candidate, as a foe of "special interests," has refused to take money from lobbyists or employ them. Neither Axelrod nor his partners at ASK ever registered as lobbyists for Commonwealth Edisonand under Illinois's loose disclosure laws, they were not required to. "I've never lobbied anybody in my life," Axelrod tells NEWSWEEK. "I've never talked to any public official on behalf of a corporate client." (He also says "no one ever denied" that Edison was the "principal funder" of his firm's ad campaign.)
But the activities of ASK (located in the same office as Axelrod's political firm) illustrate the difficulties in defining exactly who a lobbyist is. In 2004, Cablevision hired ASK to set up a group similar to CORE to block a new stadium for the New York Jets in Manhattan. Unlike Illinois, New York disclosure laws do cover such work, and ASK's $1.1 million fee was listed as the "largest lobbying contract" of the year in the annual report of the state's lobbying commission. ASK last year proposed a similar "political campaign style approach" to help Illinois hospitals block a state proposal that would have forced them to provide more medical care to the indigent. One part of its plan: create a "grassroots" group of medical experts "capable of contacting policymakers to advocate for our position," according to a copy of the proposal. (ASK didn't get the contract.) Public-interest watchdogs say these grassroots campaigns are state of the art in the lobbying world. "There's no way with a straight face to say that's not lobbying," says Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency.
Axelrod says there are still huge differences between him and top McCain advisers, including the fact that he doesn't work in D.C. But his corporate clients do have business in the capital. One of them, Exelon, lobbied Obama two years ago on a nuclear bill; the firm's executives and employees have also been a top source of cash for Obama's campaign, contributing $236,211. Axelrod says he's never talked to Obama about Exelon matters. "I'm not going to public officials with bundles of money on behalf of a corporate client," Axelrod says.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/27/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Axelrod is one devious SOB. He's everybit as destructive as Ayers. Nothing he won't do or say for a buck.(He's dealing in Millions, of course) He tries to project himself as a harmless, little old know nothing. He's the puppet master jerking Barry's strings. Writes all his poetry. But takes his dictates from anyone with a fistful of dollars.
#1
Time to discard the UN, it is rotten to the core -- and at the edges as well. It is a culture of corruption, supporting the vile and suppressing the victims.
A fascinating scene played out in Basra, Iraq, last week. Troops from the Iraqi Army stood sentinel over the once restive city as followers of rogue cleric Muqtada al-Sadr muttered dispiritedly that they had been driven from power. In this Sadrist fiefdom, the erstwhile epicenter of a Shiite insurgency that many doubted could be contained, the Iraqi army was now law.
Credit this remarkable transformation to Operation Sawlat al-Fursan, also known as operation Charge of the Knights, which began with little fanfare and much skepticism in late March. A make-or-break test for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi armed forces, the operation was largely led by the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Security Forces. Their success in routing militia elements in cities like Basra would reveal much about what could realistically be expected from Iraq.
Democrats were anything but optimistic. Presumptive nominee Barack Obama allowed that the operation had resulted in some reduction in violence but insisted, counterintuitively, that this only strengthened the case for rushed troop withdrawals. Hillary Clinton, never one to be pinned down on policy substance when grandstanding is an option, offered her standard refrain that the surge has failed to accomplish its goals. More candid was Joe Biden, who back in April was prepared to call a victory for Sadr. Of Basra, he pronounced, it looks to me like, at least on the surface, Sadr may have come out a winner here. In the Democrats dismal exegesis, the surge had failed, Iraq was doomed, and withdrawal was the only viable option.
But despair, like hope, is not a policy. Two months on, the Democrats fatalism on Iraq looks woefully off base. By all significant indicators, Iraqi security forces have turned the tide against Shiite insurgents. Their improbable control of Basra is only the latest sign of the shifting balance of power. On the strength of the success in Basra, the military reports that violence in Iraq has plunged to its lowest level in over four years. Even the New York Times no instinctive friend to the Bush administration reports of Basra that with Islamist militias evicted from their strongholds by the Iraqi Army, few doubt that this once-lawless port is in better shape than it was just two months ago. Basra has indeed produced a winner. But contra Joe Biden, its not Muqtada al-Sadr.
Just as Shiite die-hards have suffered a devastating reversal, their Sunni counterparts in al-Qaeda are also in retreat. Witness the results in Mosul. Considered by the U.S. and Iraqi forces to be the terrorists last urban stronghold in Iraq, Mosul less than a month ago was a soulless Sharia state. In keeping with Islamist mores, public expressions of joy were forbidden and local cultural traditions ruthlessly suppressed. Locals couldnt even sell tomatoes and cucumbers side by side at the market, as the juxtaposition was deemed intolerably provocative by prudish jihadists. Since the beginning of a joint U.S. Iraqi operation earlier this month, however, attacks are down by 85 percent, at least 200 al-Qaeda terrorists have been netted in sweeps, and normalcy has been reestablished. Tomatoes and cucumbers, no longer sins against Islam, are just vegetables again.
It speaks to the misdirection of the party that what is good for Iraq and coalition forces is bad for Democrats. Thus, Democrats cannot applaud the recent rollback of al-Qaeda, since doing so would discredit their assurance that Iraq is wholly disconnected from the fight against bin Ladens network. Neither can they celebrate the Iraqi forces success in Basra. That would contradict the narrative that Iraq is a lost cause best surrendered to its internal chaos. To acknowledge gains in security, meanwhile, would be to concede that the American troop presence that is, the surge that Senator Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi were confidently declaring a failure last fall is helping to pacify the country. Acknowledging that would, of course, nullify the logic of precipitous withdrawal. The only remaining option is to mouth the mantra that Iraq is a failure and hope that reality dovetails with defeatism.
Wiser and more principled is the position of John McCain. As an early proponent of the troop surge, McCain can lay claim to a prescience that not only eluded many of in his party but that continues to evade his expected Democratic opponent. Last week, for instance, Barack Obama cast a vote against the $165 billion funding bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That didnt derail the funding bill, which passed the Senate anyway, but it did place Obama squarely on the side that has given up on the surge and, by extension, on the Iraq war. Buoyed by some polls, Obama is clearly betting that military defeat in Iraq will translate into political victory at home.
McCain may yet have the better of that argument. Against the increasingly tone-deaf attacks from Democrats, he can point out that Iraqi troops have defied expectations to perform competently and sometimes impressively, even without U.S. support; that the Shiite and Sunni terrorists have been substantially repelled; and that political reconciliation is for the first time visible on the horizon. He can add, too, that all this is dependent on the surge strategy that he championed and that Obama threatens to undo.
Seen in this light, the Democrats tactic of calling the surge the Cheney-Bush-McCain strategy may well boomerang to their disadvantage. Naturally, there will be those who scoff at the notion that Iraq could be an asset for McCain in the general election. But its worth bearing in mind that these same prognosticators just a month ago were instructing that Iraqs future belonged to Sadrs brigands and al-Qaedas killers. Of the presidential candidates, only John McCain can credibly pledge that he wont let that happen.
Jacob Laksin is a senior editor for FrontPage Magazine. He is a 2007 Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellow. His e-mail is jlaksin@gmail.com
#1
only problem is that is not the story the general public sees. Last they heard of anything, its all IEDs, incompetent Iraqis, and our guys dying.
The press has deliberately mal-informed the public, and is now refusing to acknowledge the truth on the ground: that we have had military and political success in Iraq, and it is a result of the surge and the new tactics of Gen Petraeus.
They refuse to inform the general public, because if they were to do so it would expose their lies of commission and omission about the entire war effort, and people would start asking the press questions that the press does not want to answer (like bias, and driving political agenda harmful to the nation).
#4
I'm so sick of hearing about all the bad things Iran will do to us if we defend ourselves. Oh, and people will hate us even more. The senators were horrified by the plans. But typically unconcerned about Iran training insurgents and sending weapons into Iraq to kill our troops.
How about Iran is lucky that it took us this long to deliver a little payback?
#7
If you predict a strike on Iran over and over again, chances are that one of these days you are going to be correct. I would just issue a "US is going to attack Iran "Real Soon Now" warning every month. When it happens I can say I predicted it.
#8
IMO, the sooner the better for the USA. AFTER 2010 > THE JIHAD = ISLAMIST TERROR WILL BE NUCLEAR.
"Tis a version of the same basic question debated on the Net before and espec after 9-11 > TO PRECLUDE OR STOP GLOBALLY ANDOR NUCLEAR-AMBITIOUS TERROR, IS THE USA + ALLIES + WESTERN DEMOCRACY, etc. WILLING TO ENGAGE IN UNILATERAL MIL ACTIONS IN THE NAME OF ITS OWN SECURITY, PRESENT AND FUTURE, TO INCLUDE BUT NOT LIMITED TO "GREAT POWERS" CONFRONTATION = NUCLEAR-GEOPOL
"BRINKMANSHIP", ETC.??? ESPEC IFF ONE KNOWS OR BELIEVES THAT RADICAL ISLAM WILL INDUCE = ENGAGE IN THE SAME THING!?
NUCLEAR ISLAMISM = NUCLEAR JIHAD > will the USA, etc. be able and willing to do the above IN THE AFTERMATH OF ANY STRATEGIC NUCLEAR-WMD TERROR ATTACK(S) BY "NON-ALIGNED", NON-NATION SPECIFIC, ISLAMIST-MILITANT TERROR GROUPS???
Lest we fergit, MSM-NET > POST 9-11 + IRAQI FREEDOM:
* The USA must be RESTRAINED.
* The USA must be CONTROLLED.
* The USA must be REINED IN.
* The USA must install a SOCIALIST, PROGRESSIVE, or PROGRESSIVE SOCIALIST GOVT. in IRAQ.
by Lawrence Wright
Last May, a fax arrived at the London office of the Arabic newspaper Asharq Al Awsat from a shadowy figure in the radical Islamist movement who went by many names. Born Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, he was the former leader of the Egyptian terrorist group Al Jihad, and known to those in the underground mainly as Dr. Fadl. Members of Al Jihad became part of the original core of Al Qaeda; among them was Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Ladens chief lieutenant. Fadl was one of the first members of Al Qaedas top council. Twenty years ago, he wrote two of the most important books in modern Islamist discourse; Al Qaeda used them to indoctrinate recruits and justify killing. Now Fadl was announcing a new book, rejecting Al Qaedas violence. We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do that, Fadl wrote in his fax, which was sent from Tora Prison, in Egypt.
Fadls fax confirmed rumors that imprisoned leaders of Al Jihad were part of a trend in which former terrorists renounced violence. His defection posed a terrible threat to the radical Islamists, because he directly challenged their authority. There is a form of obedience that is greater than the obedience accorded to any leader, namely, obedience to God and His Messenger, Fadl wrote, claiming that hundreds of Egyptian jihadists from various factions had endorsed his position.
Two months after Fadls fax appeared, Zawahiri issued a handsomely produced video on behalf of Al Qaeda. Do they now have fax machines in Egyptian jail cells? he asked. I wonder if theyre connected to the same line as the electric-shock machines. This sarcastic dismissal was perhaps intended to dampen anxiety about Fadls manifestowhich was to be published serially, in newspapers in Egypt and Kuwaitamong Al Qaeda insiders. Fadls previous work, after all, had laid the intellectual foundation for Al Qaedas murderous acts. On a recent trip to Cairo, I met with Gamal Sultan, an Islamist writer and a publisher there. He said of Fadl, Nobody can challenge the legitimacy of this person. His writings could have far-reaching effects not only in Egypt but on leaders outside it. Usama Ayub, a former member of Egypts Islamist community, who is now the director of the Islamic Center in Münster, Germany, told me, A lot of people base their work on Fadls writings, so hes very important. When Dr. Fadl speaks, everyone should listen.
Although the debate between Fadl and Zawahiri was esoteric and bitterly personal, its ramifications for the West were potentially enormous. Other Islamist organizations had gone through violent phases before deciding that such actions led to a dead end. Was this happening to Al Jihad? Could it happen even to Al Qaeda?
Posted by: Fred ||
05/27/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Fadl sees that AQ (and jihad in general) overplayed its hand and some serious whupass ensued. WWMD? Some taqiyya is apparently in order. It is very inappropriate to use violent jihad if you have little chance of winning, sez profit (swat'im). The violence can (inshalali, must) be resumed when conditions change in favor of Slam.
#2
"It is the obligation of members of a religion to strongly denounce those factions of their faith who do horrible things in the name of said faith. I would expect the moderate Muslims on our campus and the world to do just this. A refusal to take a moral stance against terrorism is a silent acceptance of it"
Yet you'll never hear a peep from the academic leftists. That is until the Islamic radicals are done with us that keep them safe, then they will hang the liberals from lamp posts with piano wire. Then they'll scream for us to protect them as we always have, and we will not be there.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
