This is a review of the libel trial brought by the France 2 public channel; the "Al durah" netzarim shooting is the french Establishment-enabled pallywood lie, the 21st Century biggest and most serious bloodlibel : http://www.seconddraft.org/aldurah.php, http://www.truthnow.org, http://www.trans-int.blogspot.com/ (scroll down to the Al-Dura/France2 Affair sidebar links), http://www.theaugeanstables.com/category/al-durah-affair/.
Its late and I leave tomorrow. But a brief note on todays proceedings. I missed most of it, waiting in a back room with the other witnesses. I went second to last. But I was there for my testimony (see my Conversations with Enderlin we discussed the map), and Gerard Huber, author of the only extant book on Al Durah (unless you want to include Stephanie Gutmanns). Then came the summations. France2s lawyer asked no questions of any of the witnesses and offered no witnesses for her case. Neither Charles Enderlin nor Arlette Chabot, the two plaintiffs, appeared.
After the last witness, Gerard Huber, the judges took a 6 minute break by now its past 7 at night. Outside the courtroom Nidra told me how impressed she was with the level of the proceedings including the nature of the judges questions. We went back in for summations. First the lawyer for France2, then the Procureur de la République, an office I did not know about until two days ago. This court-appointed official represents la société civile, and summarizes from the point of view of the public interest how to he or she reads the evidence presented and finally makes a recommendation.
The lawyer for France2 gave a strikingly lackluster speech in which she repeated the basic presentation that France2 (via Charles Enderlin) has been repeating for years, as if she had heard none of the witnesses, nor read any of the voluminous work that Philippe and his lawyer had prepared. She questioned the trustworthiness of the witnesses, summarizing their comments and dismissing their qualifications. I apparently said, euh euh that I didnt know much, and anyway, what does he know about images [and fakes], hes a medievalist. I never so reveled in lame criticism.
Then came Madame la Procureur de la Republique. A screen writer could not have written a better speech. All the best tropes of civil society honesty, accountability, fairness, transparency, context the dangerous powers of an uncriticized quatrième état (fourth estate) the right of the public to know, and therefore the responsibility of France2 to show the tapes of their cameraman Talal abu Rahmeh the fact that what Phillipe had said was in fact defamation of Charles Enderlins reputation as a journalist, but that the evidence more than supported such an accusation that this was not the typical case of libel, where the person slings unconsidered insults at another, but a carefully studied and considered criticism that any sharp language was more than justified in the context of a case where one wants to attract attention that it was not malice to want que Charles Enderlin tombe [that Charles Enderlin should fall].
Oh, and did I mention that she made numerous references to the testimony, that witnesses had come from far away to testify, that this was not just a French issue, but an international issue, and that many had suffered a great deal because of these images.
Then came Philippes lawyer who could have been considerably more concise especially at that time of the evening, then Philippe, who made seven lapidary remarks, the last of which was the only thing missing from Madame la Procureurs remarks: That Charles Enderlin and France2 are using the courts to avoid facing the criticism leveled at them, and that if they would produce the rushes and abide by an open inquiry, then we wouldnt even be in court.
Wow. French Republican values have scored a great first round victory today. This is the France that I fell in love with as a kid, and as a student reading Jules Michelet, and doing medieval history with intellectually vibrant people, the great souled people with wise and fair-minded institutions, and real ideals and commitment to integrity the people of the Peace of God, and the early, heady days of the French Revolution.
Not to get too excited too soon that was just one important court officer exercising her functions impeccably, a model of integrity and an accused who defended himself with great diligence and intelligence.
The judges make their decision known on October 19 (a week before the next trial on October 26 at which I will also be testifying ).
This game is not over, and France2 (and the French MSM) has more than a bored lawyer working their side of the board. No one undergoes thorough, career-ending humiliation lightly, and there are so many resources for the aggrieved individuals in this case Charles Enderlin, Arlette Chabot, and France2 to make use of
Stay tuned, and read Nidra.
Update: Philippes final remarks:
I am of good faith and thiss is what Id like to remind the court to prove it:
- They are too many incoherences, contradictions, unliklihoods in the film of France2 and the commentaries that followed its diffusion. To realize that one has only to look at the photos on the cover of Gerard Hubers book.
- The false report was produced by the Palestinian cameraman, Talal abu Rahmeh and covered up by Charles Enderlin and his hierarchy.
- When all is said and done, there are only images, and the accusations are based on the images so lets analyze the images.
- I was transparent throughout this long process and this procedure. I presented all the elements at my disposal to affirm that in good faith it was staged.
- France 2 hides its 27 minutes of rushes which are supposed to prove its version and its good faith. Why? Why didnt they just produce their 27 minutes to shut us up?
- I cannot prove that an even that didnt happen didnt take place. The burden of proof is on France2.
- France 2 wanted to use justice to silence its critics and give credence to its reporting. Do not let them do it.
You might call Rear Adm. Harry Harris a jailer. As commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, a job he has held for six months, he is in charge of one of the world's best-known detention facilities. But if you call this place a prison, he will correct you.
"Prisons are about rehabilitation and punishment," Adm. Harris told me in a phone conversation last week, reiterating a point he had made a few days earlier in a briefing for visiting journalists here. "What we are about is keeping enemy combatants off the battlefield. . . . The enemy combatants that we have here were captured on the battlefield or running from the battlefield, and they were engaged in combat operations against Americans, and in many cases killed Americans. What we're trying to do here in Guantanamo is simply keep them off the battlefield, because we know that many of them would go back to the fight."
In fact, Adm. Harris says, many of them have kept fighting even while in captivity. They are carrying out coordinated actions with the apparent goals of disrupting the camp's operations, furthering anti-American propaganda, and wounding and intimidating the servicemen who guard them. . . .
. . . Before Camp 1 closed, three detainees there--two Saudis and a Yemeni--succeeded in killing themselves. On the morning of June 10, guards found the trio, all in the same cell block, hanged with clothing and bedsheets.
Domestic foes of the war on terror wasted no time in trying to co-opt the detainees' martyrdom for their own cause. Human Rights Watch claimed that the detainees had suffered from "incredible despair" because they had been "completely cut off from the world." The New York Times editorialized that the suicides were "the inevitable result of creating a netherworld of despair beyond the laws of civilized nations."
Adm. Harris had a different view. "I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us," he said at the time--and he stands by that statement. In response, the Times scolded the admiral for displaying "a profound disassociation from humanity."
His case is the stronger one. The proximity and simultaneity of the suicides argue that they were coordinated rather than spontaneous. Although some detainees suffer from mental illnesses, for which they receive treatment at the camp infirmary, there is no evidence that these three did. "They recently had been given . . . a psychiatric evaluation, and they were all fine," Adm. Harris tells me. It may be hard to comprehend the mentality of one who would kill himself to make a political statement, but to doubt that these men could do so is to test the limits of fatuity. After all, that is exactly what 19 of their comrades did five years ago Monday. . . .
Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/16/2006 08:54 ||
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According to a report released September 8 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Saddam Hussein "was resistant to cooperating with al Qaeda or any other Islamist groups." It's an odd claim. Saddam Hussein's regime has a long and well-documented history of cooperating with Islamists, including al Qaeda and its affiliates.
As early as 1982, the Iraqi regime was openly supporting, training, and funding the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization opposed to the secular regime of Hafez Assad. For years, Saddam Hussein cultivated warm relations with Hassan al-Turabi, the Islamist who was the de facto leader of the Sudanese terrorist state, and a man Bill Clinton described as "a buddy of [Osama] bin Laden's."
Throughout the 1990s, the Iraqi regime hosted Popular Islamic Conferences in Baghdad, gatherings modeled after conferences Turabi hosted in Khartoum. Mark Fineman, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, attended one of the conferences and filed a story about his experience on January 26, 1993. "There are delegates from the most committed Islamic organizations on Earth," he wrote. "Afghan mujahedeen (holy warriors), Palestinian militants, Sudanese fundamentalists, the Islamic Brotherhood and Pakistan's Party of Islam." Newsweek's Christopher Dickey attended the same conference and wrote about it in 2002. "Islamic radicals from all over the Middle East, Africa, and Asia converged on Baghdad," he wrote, "to show their solidarity with Iraq in the face of American aggression. . . . Every time I hear diplomats and politicians, whether in Washington or the capitals of Europe, declare that Saddam Hussein is a 'secular Baathist ideologue' who has nothing to do with Islamists or terrorist calls to jihad, I think of that afternoon and I wonder what they're talking about. If that was not a fledgling Qaeda itself at the Rashid convention, it sure was Saddam's version of it."
Go ahead, scroll through the whole article.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/16/2006 15:35 ||
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#1
"How Bad Is The Senate Intelligence Report?"
As bad as all the jokes one could make about "Senate Intelligence"?
MODS, this obviously is not a news article but a blog..plz check and see if it's RB worthy.
Hi,
Fitnah, is one of these words that I find difficult to translate succinctly; perhaps there is an English synonym unknown to me. Fitnah is sawing discord that results in conflict and violent antagonism. But in Arabic the word has much stronger connotation. There is a verse in the holy Koran that contains the following expression: Fitnah is worse than murder. What is happening in the land of the two rivers right now is one of the worst Fitnahs in our long eventful history. We have known in the past, persecution, intimidation and murder; but that was always organized and perpetrated by the state and its repressive organs. We have never seen though, neighbor turning against neighbor and friend upon his erstwhile friend, even kin against kin; not in our recent history at any rate. The Cancer is spreading and the Plague is raging. The atrocities committed are of unimaginable horror. Gangs are out hunting for prey everyday; anybody of the wrong sect they come across is doomed. They are not content with murder, but the most bestial tortures are inflicted on the poor innocent victim before the killing. Not to mention the eviction of families from their homes under threats of extermination, threats which are made good in case of refusal to comply. The plans of the accursed Zarqawi, rotting now in his grave, and his accomplices have proven more serious than many might have thought. The attack on the holy shrines in Samara was a masterstroke planned on the highest level by the Elders of ToraPora as the opening move of a serious escalation of the sectarian war that they have been seeking desperately, hoping to finally force the other side to react and thereby ignite the tit for tat acts that could deteriorate eventually into full sectarian civil war. The most important goal of the enemy is to force the general Sunni population to rebellion and total negation of the new order. They have been maddened by the lack of reaction on the part of Shiaas despite all the killings and atrocities perpetrated for more than three years, and it was more important for them to precipitate these reactions than any other consideration. They desperately sought that Sunnis be killed more than just wreaking more vengeance on the Shiaas. This time the religious leadership of Sistani and the Margiiyah could no longer restrain the people. And unfortunately, retaliation started to take place. And as usual, it is always the weak and the innocent who suffer most from both sides.
The vision of the enemy is to engulf the country in a quagmire of medieval bestiality that would completely abort all efforts of reconciliation and utterly thwart and bring down the elected government; and encouraged by noises coming out of the U.S. they hope to disgust and confuse the Americans out of Iraq with the help of the antiwar camp in the West, and some foolish councilors in America who think they know better when in fact, they understand nothing. With this main obstacle of the U.S. military removed, they can then unleash their full offensive and bring in all the "Jihadis" from all over the world and together with the Saddamists and local aroused Sunni tribesmen, they imagine they can overrun the country and massacre everybody and establish their Taliban style Emirate or perhaps Caliphate or whatever their sick minds are hallucinating. It must be said, however, that these people, despite all their exceptional capacity for mischief and brutality remain the irrational and stupid Morlocks that they really are. When it comes to calculating the consequences beyond the immediate desire for vengeance and destruction they cannot see much beyond their noses. This same trait characterized all the actions of deposed Saddam, and you all know where his policies brought us. They cannot see, for instance, that the days when they could subjugate the Shiaas and the Kurds as before are gone forever. Perhaps they might overrun Baghdad and its surrounds temporarily, but they will not be able to go much further south. As for the Kurds, they should remember that even at the height of Saddams power and even with the use of chemical weapons it was not possible to subdue this people. I am not related in any way to the Kurds, but I must tell you my opinion about them: this race of people is quite a decent one, considering the tough neighborhood where they were destined to inhabit. This opinion does not come from just some political bias but is based on my own personal experience. For those of you interested in history, the Kurds are the descendants of the ancient Parthians, sometime also called the Medians, a people classified as Arian or Indo-European by anthropologists. Once they had a large kingdom which is said to have been one of the most tolerant and benign in the ancient world. Archeologists have found relics of this empire. They wore very long, pointed and rather comical caps on their heads. They are tough mountain people renowned for their fortitude and constancy in friendship with those who chose to be their allies.
In the present complex befogged situation there are so many urgent questions to address that I find it hard where to start. What is clear, however is that the U.S. in particular and the West in general are facing serious challenges on several fronts, and these challenges are proving more serious than they expected and bargained for. This calls for reexamination and rethinking some previous ideas and notions and devising new approaches and methods to deal with situations that are quite different from previously conceived scenarios. The crucial questions concern the course of action that has to be taken now. What would be the best way to counterattack, conceding that the initiative seems to be in the others hands? The answers to these questions require much careful consideration. To start with we must ask ourselves quite bluntly: is there a way out that will ensure a satisfactory outcome from our point of view? Well to cut a long story short, I would like to begin with a conclusion contrary to good writing practice. I believe that despite all the mistakes that were made there is still a way to succeed. This way is both technical on the one side and political and economic on the other. But this has to be the subject of future posts.
As a footnote I would like to draw your attention to this . I have some inside information regarding the situation in the Anbar, where there is a real split amongst the Dulaim Tribes into anti-terrorist and pro-terrorist camps. That might be a subject for an interesting future post.
For the time being I bid you farewell and God Bless.
#1
We have never seen though, neighbor turning against neighbor and friend upon his erstwhile friend, even kin against kin; not in our recent history at any rate
#2
In my opinion Alaa is almost always RB-worthy. Furthermore, as an actual observer of the events, what he writes is substantially more 'news reporting' than most 'real' news articles. (Thinemp: 'honor' killings are a special subset of the kind of kin-on-kin killing he is writing about, and as I understand it, such killings have not been acceptable in Iraq in the past either.)
Tell us some of the ingredients that draw believers to the political faith.
Hollander: As to the ingredients of the kind of political belief I discussed, there are of course many. Most important probably the generic human need, disposition to believe in something that transcends the immediate, personal realm and interests.
As I observed in the book, the political beliefs in question resembled the religious ones: pursuit of meaning, self-transcendence, of the community of like-minded etc.
Historical and social conditions help to explain why people choose certain beliefs over others at different times in different societies. Altruistic impulses motivated most of the people discussed in this book; they were idealistic, or at any rate started out idealistic.
Communist ideals also appeal to all those who find the individualism, competitiveness and social isolation of modern, democratic, capitalist societies unappealing and difficult to live with. . While social justice was an important goal, the pursuit of community was the more important one for these idealists
#1
--
Communist ideals also appeal to all those who find the individualism, competitiveness and social isolation of modern, democratic, capitalist societies unappealing and difficult to live with. . While social justice was an important goal, the pursuit of community was the more important one for these idealists--
In short, I don't like my co-workers, I only wnat to be surrounded by people like me.
The Italian reporter Oriana Fallaci, who died on Thursday, in recent years became better known for her diatribes against Islam than for her long record as a war correspondent.
After a career spanning over half a century during which she covered most of the planet's major wars and interviewed a string of world leaders, Fallaci hit headlines in her own right following the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Typical of her outspoken attacks on Islam was an article she wrote for the Corriere della Sera newspaper in July last year, where she described the religion both as "an enemy in the house" of the West and "incompatible with democracy."
"We are at war: do you accept that, yes or no?" she wrote, adding that the integration of Muslims into western society was a "nightmare."
She argued that Islam's holy book, the Koran, was "incompatible with freedom, incompatible with democracy and incompatible with human rights," and she refused to accept that Islamic extremists were but a small minority of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims.
Her inflammatory stance earned her lawsuits in both Italy and France, although to date none of them have resulted in rulings against her.
Last year she was granted an audience with Pope Benedict XVI at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, even though she had described herself as an atheist Christian.
Oriana Fallaci was born in June 1929 in Florence, where she studied at the faculty of medicine before becoming a professional journalist as early as 1950.
From 1967 on she was to report on the Vietnam War, the Indo-Pakistan war and a string of subsequent conflicts in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.
Among world leaders she interviewed, sometimes to devastating effect, were the Vietnam era United States secretary of state Henry Kissinger, the Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini and the late Pakistani president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
For many years Fallaci divided her time between homes in Florence and New York, where she wrote for the New York Times, Life, The Washington Post and other major newspapers.
She never married, but for several years in the 1970s she was the companion of Alekos Panagoulis, a Greek poet and activist who had been jailed and tortured for his bitter fight against his country's military regime in the early 1960s.
She devoted her book A Man to Panagoulis after he died in a car crash, widely believed to have been not accidental, in 1979.
#3
Circa 1979, Fallaci interviewed the parasitic tyrant, Ayatollah Khomenei. Before the interview began, Fallaci grabbed the Chador (head covering) that she was forced to wear, and said, "I am taking off this Medieval rag." Khomenei continued the interview.
#6
I get italian TV in my hotel room, and they had several very long segments dealing with her death, with reaction from at least seven politicians and other notables. She obviously struck a nerve.
My al Andalus report is forthcoming, pending recovery from sleep deprivation and equalization of my blood / sangria ratios.
Posted by: Seafarious reluctantly on the way home from Barcelona ||
09/16/2006 22:20 Comments ||
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#7
Glad that you made it through Barcelona alive with your US flag tee shirt, Seafarious. Will be looking forward to your report. Travel safe.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/16/2006 22:36 Comments ||
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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.
