Hi there, !
Today Mon 02/21/2005 Sun 02/20/2005 Sat 02/19/2005 Fri 02/18/2005 Thu 02/17/2005 Wed 02/16/2005 Tue 02/15/2005 Archives
Rantburg
532760 articles and 1859252 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 92 articles and 528 comments as of 11:49.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Local News       
Syria replaces intelligence chief
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
2 00:00 phd [2] 
12 00:00 Phil Fraering [6] 
6 00:00 OldSpook [2] 
11 00:00 Bulldog [2] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
4 00:00 Sobiesky [3]
0 [4]
1 00:00 JerseyMike [5]
7 00:00 trailing wife [2]
14 00:00 Tholuck Angomotch9553 [3]
0 [3]
1 00:00 Mac Suirtain [2]
6 00:00 Dishman [1]
0 [1]
6 00:00 Phil Fraering [3]
1 00:00 trailing wife [1]
1 00:00 No novocaine [3]
0 [1]
0 [2]
0 [3]
5 00:00 trailing wife [1]
3 00:00 Remoteman [2]
0 [1]
1 00:00 BigEd [3]
0 [1]
8 00:00 .com [3]
4 00:00 Shipman [4]
0 [1]
0 [1]
0 [1]
44 00:00 AzCat [2]
0 [3]
0 [1]
6 00:00 Frank G [1]
2 00:00 Shipman []
1 00:00 Liberalhawk [2]
1 00:00 Desert Blondie [3]
Page 2: WoT Background
0 []
0 []
2 00:00 Bomb-a-rama []
4 00:00 2b [3]
1 00:00 Robert Crawford [3]
0 []
3 00:00 AzCat [1]
5 00:00 Phil Fraering [3]
5 00:00 Thraing Hupoluper1864 [4]
38 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [8]
0 []
1 00:00 Seafarious [1]
5 00:00 Shipman [3]
4 00:00 JosephMendiola [3]
5 00:00 Jake-the-Peg [2]
10 00:00 Jame Retief [3]
1 00:00 jackal [5]
25 00:00 trailing wife [2]
6 00:00 RWV [5]
2 00:00 Deacon Blues [2]
4 00:00 DAJ []
54 00:00 OldSpook [3]
23 00:00 Phil Fraering [6]
7 00:00 3dc [5]
8 00:00 Dishman []
6 00:00 SwissTex [2]
0 [1]
9 00:00 Zhang Fei []
7 00:00 Duh [2]
1 00:00 gromgorru [2]
13 00:00 trailing wife [1]
0 [2]
3 00:00 Shipman [2]
2 00:00 Roberta Flack [1]
Page 3: Non-WoT
1 00:00 Robert Crawford [3]
0 []
2 00:00 john [1]
0 [2]
4 00:00 phil_b []
3 00:00 Zhang Fei [1]
9 00:00 Dcreeper [2]
1 00:00 trailing wife [3]
1 00:00 Desert Blondie []
6 00:00 DMFD [5]
1 00:00 Bomb-a-rama [2]
1 00:00 BigEd []
3 00:00 2b []
9 00:00 ANdrea [3]
6 00:00 RWV [2]
5 00:00 Anonymoose [4]
28 00:00 JosephMendiola [4]
8 00:00 Anonymoose [6]
13 00:00 Atomic Conspiracy [4]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
4 00:00 trailing wife [1]
12 00:00 JosephMendiola [2]
16 00:00 State Versus Meadow Muffin case [2]
Britain
Why Labour Does Not Need the Jews (another nail in the Euro-coffin)
The Spectator (registration required)

The government is prepared to alienate Jewish voters in order to win Muslim support
There is no 'Jewish' vote in Great Britain any more. There used to be, back in the time of Cable Street and Mosley and even up to 20 or so years ago. Jews used to vote, en masse, for Labour. But not now. At the last general election, the Jewish vote was split exactly 50—50 between Labour and Conservative.

Further, there aren't that many of them left, the Jews. Their number has shrunk by one third since 1945, largely as a result of their propensity to integrate and their readiness to become assimilated: they marry outside of their communities, much to the consternation of the Chief Rabbi. They have always been happy to identify with British values.

And finally, the 300,000 Jewish people who remain are widely dispersed. There are still some famous Jewish enclaves, of course — Stamford Hill and Golders Green in London, parts of Manchester, Leeds and Bradford and so on. But a large proportion of that 300,000 are scattered to the wind, apparently happily so, from Truro to Thurso.

All of which means that, electorally, there is no point in courting the Jewish vote, because there isn't one as such. The Jews have become an electoral insignificance and so will not be an issue in the forthcoming general election. Except, however, indirectly. Because it follows that if there's no point in courting the Jewish vote, then equally there is no harm in offending Jewish people if electoral advantage can be gained among another section of the population by so doing.

Certainly, right now, Labour seems to be going out of its way to antagonise the Jews. Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, recently told a Jewish reporter that, in doing the bidding of the Daily Mail group of newspapers, he was behaving in a manner similar to that of those Jews who acted as guards in the Nazi concentration camps. This may simply have been another example of Ken's ad hoc arrogance and offensiveness, with which we are all by now familiar. There may, too, have been some of that unconscious anti-Semitism which has historically infested the far Left; many psychoanalysts believe that the Left's aversion to capitalism is simply a displaced loathing of Jews. But what struck me was not so much Ken's original comment, nor his laughable attempts to justify the fact that he, too, had worked for Northcliffe House as a restaurant reviewer despite '20 years of harassment' from that institution. What really struck me was his refusal to say sorry to the reporter and, more importantly, his readiness to hold press conferences and issue statements where he cheerfully restated his comment and in the process just happened to take a couple of swipes at the Board of Deputies of British Jews and, in passing, attack Israel. What on earth was he up to, the Mayor? Clearly his every utterance made matters worse. What was he hoping to gain?
*snip

The Continent is much worse than the UK in this respect, and this article pinpoints the reason. Depraved Euro-elite politicians will do anything for Muslim votes and the cowed masses of PC-indoctrinated non-Muslims will not resist until it is too late.
The only question now is whether America will step forth once again to save Europe from itself.
Why should we? The Europeans who are really worth saving would be welcome to come here. The rest are finished, doomed to the barbarian domination they have done so much to bring on themselves.

I have brought out my plutonium-powered crystal ball and tuned it to the future White House communications net:

President Rice to the emergency speaker of the French Assembly, June 2010:
"What, Monsieur LeFrog? Muslims in your pipsqueak air force have mutinied and you want US to bomb the Islamo mobs to keep them from massacring another 100,000 Frenchmen? Non! Have you not heard about the evil effects of American bombing? We have heard nothing else from you for the past 50 years and we are finally listening! Look, our Marines have seized Dunkirk and Bordeaux, as well as Hamburg and Portsmouth. They will hold their perimeters for three days. Evacuation fleets are waiting offshore. Get aboard in that time, if you like, and leave the leftists, the Islamos, and the attitude behind. We are not coming back."
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 02/18/2005 2:27:12 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The French nuclear deterrent could be a real problem as events play out in the next decade and the Caliphate rises to dominance. I think we should act now to eliminate this danger, and we can do it by turning the enemy against themselves. The CIA or, failing that, wealthy private citizens, should start financing French Greens and eco-wackies on the condition that they use the funds to campaign for unilateral nuclear disarmament.

This kind of scheme has actually worked before. Citizen Hughes, based on papers stolen from Howard Hughes' private warehouse, details how Hughes paid eco-wacky Barry Commoner $100,000 to stir up anti-nuclear demonstrations in Las Vegas in the late 60s. Hughes wanted leverage in a dispute with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and it worked perfectly. Commoner gave the word and thousands of naive hippies descended on Vegas and the nearby Nevada Test Site.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 02/18/2005 2:45 Comments || Top||

#2  The Europeans who are really worth saving would be welcome to come here.

True but there are probably some Europeans in the stretch running generally north and east from the Czech Republic that are still worth saving. And though there's no real evidence to support the assertion at all I have a strange feeling the even Russia might be worth saving this time around.
Posted by: AzCat || 02/18/2005 4:07 Comments || Top||

#3  I often wonder if the British are as Euorweenie as their press likes to present. Imagine if Ohio had gone the other way. There would be little difference between our policy and the Euroweenie policy - but it would in no way be reflective of our public at large. The BBC is relentless and I think many people, (just like here in the US) don't really pay much attention to world's events and so they just accept, without thinking, whatever the telly tells them to.
Posted by: 2b || 02/18/2005 7:37 Comments || Top||

#4  The Spectator goes on to suggest that Labour knows it's losing the Muslim vote (70% of whom, it claims, opposed the Iraq war - I thought it was more) and that its recent and execrable hints at anti-Semitism are efforts to get them back on board. Apparently Labour don't think that anti-Semitism and personalised attacks on the Tory leadership will cost them anything among voters. I hope they're very, very wrong...
Posted by: Bulldog || 02/18/2005 8:25 Comments || Top||

#5  President Rice to the emergency speaker of the French Assembly, June 2010:
"What, Monsieur LeFrog? Muslims in your pipsqueak air force have mutinied and you want US to bomb the Islamo mobs to keep them from massacring another 100,000 Frenchmen? Non! Have you not heard about the evil effects of American bombing? We have heard nothing else from you for the past 50 years and we are finally listening! Look, our Marines have seized Dunkirk and Bordeaux, as well as Hamburg and Portsmouth. They will hold their perimeters for three days. Evacuation fleets are waiting offshore. Get aboard in that time, if you like, and leave the leftists, the Islamos, and the attitude behind. We are not coming back."


She hung up the phone and sighed. Grinning, she looked at her chief of staff, George P. Bush (former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush's son), and said, "Don't let them bother me again. The 49ers are playing the Raiders in a few minutes. Only interrupt me if there is someone really important..."

He replied, "Yes, Madame President." He chuckled, and left..."
Posted by: BigEd || 02/18/2005 11:50 Comments || Top||

#6  Seems like the US has already spent political and human capital on saving Europe from itself. The War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq is about transforming the cesspool called the Middle East. Democracy in the muslim world will ultimately reduce the immigration pressure now being exerted on Europe and change the mindset of those in the Islamic enclaves in Europe. I suspect most European politicians already understand this but their anti-american PC thinking prevents them from admitting same.
Posted by: john || 02/18/2005 13:36 Comments || Top||

#7  "red" ken is a longtime of enemy of Tony Blair, it seems rather unfair to blame New Labour for Red Kens antics. That leaves the flying pigs thingie, which really could have been an oversight. There certainly seems to be antisemitism in the UK left, but I dont see that left is being particularly close to the current leadership of the Labour Party.

Of course its not surprising the Spectator would want to tie Tony to the antics of UKs loony left.
Posted by: Liberalhawk || 02/18/2005 14:19 Comments || Top||

#8  Looks like Blair is going to win another term.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/18/2005 15:58 Comments || Top||

#9  There are also predictions that the turnout will be the lowest since the war. Blair got less votes than Major did, in the previous election. Things could be very interesting in a low turnout situation.

Lh - Red Ken is just one of many Labour politicos who are Leftoid lunatics. It's fairer to say that you shouldn't blame Labour for Blair's antics...
Posted by: Bulldog || 02/18/2005 19:36 Comments || Top||

#10  Isn't he (Red Ken) typical of "back benchers" who really are the Labor Party?
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/18/2005 19:39 Comments || Top||

#11  Pretty much, SPoD. The list is long indeed.
Posted by: Bulldog || 02/18/2005 20:15 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
VDH: Unsung Victories
Posted by: tipper || 02/18/2005 09:56 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Kudos to VDH for using equating the enemy with Fascism. I wish the term "Islamofascism" had more currency.

Disengage from the Saud terrorist entity? I support re-patriation of the Anglo-American oil fields, and occupation until Islamofascism is deprogramed from captive minds. And I would make Mecca and Medina about as inhabitable as the Moon. And any Muslimutt who protested would be deemed as a target. SAY DOOM!
Posted by: IToldYouSo || 02/18/2005 13:24 Comments || Top||

#2  You're a lying sack of shit.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/18/2005 16:51 Comments || Top||

#3  'bout sums him up.
Posted by: Tom || 02/18/2005 16:55 Comments || Top||

#4  I think IToldYouSO is a troll who points to his own posts on other blogs to prove that rantburg war supporters and conservatives seem nutz.

Ahhh..poor ITYS, that's just so pathetic.
Posted by: 2b || 02/18/2005 17:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Kinda funny in a sad pat-buckcannon goes to Alberta sorta way.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/18/2005 17:52 Comments || Top||

#6  I think you're right 2b. Hope Koz & DU like him, they are partial to befuddled idiots it seems.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/18/2005 17:59 Comments || Top||

#7  SAY SPOON!
Posted by: Frank G || 02/18/2005 18:06 Comments || Top||

#8  LOON!

jeez...I can't even enjoy myself playing with the chew toy....pathetic is right
Posted by: Frank G || 02/18/2005 18:11 Comments || Top||

#9  Fred:
Who posted the substance, and who posted the noise here? This is a news blog. Please put a one posted-article a day quota. That would lead the sk8r boys to brain-food.

2b: it doesn't compute.
Posted by: IToldYouSo || 02/18/2005 21:51 Comments || Top||

#10  noise: SAY DOOM!
Posted by: Frank G || 02/18/2005 21:52 Comments || Top||

#11  Frank's contribution is commentary. He doesn't have time to search for articles, too, as he has a job and a family, things like that.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/18/2005 22:41 Comments || Top||

#12  The Tick: SPOOOOOON!

Neo: There is no Spoon.

Tick: SPOOOOOOON!...
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 02/18/2005 23:14 Comments || Top||


Ralph Peters: Smart Intel Pick
PRESIDENT Bush just made a very promising choice for our first national intelligence director: Ambassador John Negroponte. Thinking creatively, Bush picked someone who has had to rely upon intelligence, rather than an insider who can't see beyond the system's self-satisfied, mammoth bureaucracy.

Normally, a diplomat would be a terrible choice to drive intel reform. Too many diplos just don't have the punch to make things happen. Negroponte's different. He's a hitter. With experience in Honduras during Central America's years of crisis, as well as in Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations and now Iraq, this guy knows what it means to be blindsided by bad intel.

His Baghdad sojourn will have brought him up to date both on the intel system's improving capabilities and its remaining inadequacies. Based on his track record for getting things done — blood on the floor be damned — Negroponte may be just the right man to provide top cover for Porter Goss, the Director of Central Intelligence, who's been shaking up the CIA and forcing essential changes.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: tipper || 02/18/2005 9:54:31 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  wow..ralph peters and VDH all in the same day. A dose of Steyn and I can take in a deep breath of sanity.
Posted by: 2b || 02/18/2005 11:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Peters is saying what I have been saying all along - except he is far more eloquent than I am.

The "old boys club" way of doing things has prevented the development of top-flight analysts. The system supports more of a patronage path than a meritocracy (i.e. its typical Government in terms of payscales and promotions). And patronage goes to the Ivy Leaguers from their Ivy League bosses, for the simple reason that they beleive they are better educated than anyone coming out of any "state college" type of system, which is not the case anymore, at least not for intel work.

They need to stop recruiting the Ivy League types, and get out into red-state country and pick the cream of the crop there. Because out in red-state country, you rise on your own merits far more often than on patronage and family connections.

That would be a good first step in restocking after cleaning house.

The interesting thing will be who replaces Hayden at NSA.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/18/2005 11:52 Comments || Top||

#3  I would disagree about priorities. Eliminating the deadwood is one thing, but the desire to do this is a longstanding one in the Intel community. In this case, Negroponte is *first* going to have to completely re-write the task organization of "the 15". To explain: take the NRO, for example. Negroponte will first ask, how *did* the NRO function, in past? Probably with a direct link to the President's National Security Council, just like the other 14. Then, if the NSC found something interesting, they might funnel just the tiniest bit of information to a different organization, say the NSA, and tell them to "check it out". This is tremendously wasteful in time, effort, energy and resources. If there is a cross-pipeline of information between agencies, then when a focus is ordered on something, it gets *intense* scrutiny and input from all 15 agencies. A good comparison would be the "Goldwater" reorganization of the Pentagon, to *make* the armed forces integrate with each other (post Granada Invasion screw-up). This would mean that, in future, let's say something interesting is discovered by someone to be happening in the country of Tinystan. All 15 agencies start compiling data, collating it, and developing a picture: the NRO says "we now have current photos of the site"; the NSA says "we have intercepted a LOT of electronic traffic and discovered these things"; and the CIA says "lots of known terrorists have suddenly decided to vacation in Tinystan", etc.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/18/2005 14:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Tinystan ..heh, heh!
Posted by: 2b || 02/18/2005 17:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Peters is saying what I have been saying all along - except he is far more eloquent than I am.

The "old boys club" way of doing things has prevented the development of top-flight analysts. The system supports more of a patronage path than a meritocracy (i.e. its typical Government in terms of payscales and promotions). And patronage goes to the Ivy Leaguers from their Ivy League bosses, for the simple reason that they beleive they are better educated than anyone coming out of any "state college" type of system, which is not the case anymore, at least not for intel work.

They need to stop recruiting the Ivy League types, and get out into red-state country and pick the cream of the crop there. Because out in red-state country, you rise on your own merits far more often than on patronage and family connections.

That would be a good first step in restocking after cleaning house.

The interesting thing will be who replaces Hayden at NSA.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/18/2005 11:52 Comments || Top||

#6  Peters is saying what I have been saying all along - except he is far more eloquent than I am.

The "old boys club" way of doing things has prevented the development of top-flight analysts. The system supports more of a patronage path than a meritocracy (i.e. its typical Government in terms of payscales and promotions). And patronage goes to the Ivy Leaguers from their Ivy League bosses, for the simple reason that they beleive they are better educated than anyone coming out of any "state college" type of system, which is not the case anymore, at least not for intel work.

They need to stop recruiting the Ivy League types, and get out into red-state country and pick the cream of the crop there. Because out in red-state country, you rise on your own merits far more often than on patronage and family connections.

That would be a good first step in restocking after cleaning house.

The interesting thing will be who replaces Hayden at NSA.
Posted by: OldSpook || 02/18/2005 11:52 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Capitalism and Human Nature
Posted by: tipper || 02/18/2005 09:59 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Interesting.
Posted by: 2b || 02/18/2005 11:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Pure hogwash! By definition, capitalism, a human artefact, isn't natural, it's artificial. As far as evolutionary psychology goes, the marxists invented it with Vygotsky.

More Cato crapola.

Posted by: phd || 02/18/2005 18:06 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
92[untagged]

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2005-02-18
  Syria replaces intelligence chief
Thu 2005-02-17
  Iran and Syria Form United Front
Wed 2005-02-16
  Plane fires missile near Iranian Busheir plant
Tue 2005-02-15
  U.S. Withdraws Ambassador From Syria
Mon 2005-02-14
  Hariri boomed in Beirut
Sun 2005-02-13
  Algerian Islamic Party Supports Amnesty to End Rebel Violence
Sat 2005-02-12
  Car Bomb Kills 17 Outside Iraqi Hospital
Fri 2005-02-11
  Iraqis seize 16 trucks filled with Iranian weapons
Thu 2005-02-10
  North Korea acknowledges it has nuclear weapons
Wed 2005-02-09
  Suicide Bomber Kills 21 in Crowd in Iraq
Tue 2005-02-08
  Israel, Palestinians call truce
Mon 2005-02-07
  Fatah calls for ceasefire
Sun 2005-02-06
  Algeria takes out GSPC bombmaking unit
Sat 2005-02-05
  Kuwait hunts key suspects after surge of violence
Fri 2005-02-04
  Iraqi citizens ice 5 terrs


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.
3.144.27.148
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (32)    WoT Background (34)    Non-WoT (19)    Local News (3)    (0)