Another bad blow against freedom in the west. Lars Hedegaard, President of the Danish Free Press Society and The International Free Press Society, was yesterday found guilty of hate speech under the Danish penal code. His crime as I wrote previously here, here and here was to draw attention to child abuse and violence against women in Muslim culture. The day after the interview, he stressed that his opinions were about Islam and not intended to refer to all Muslims.
The trial was a show trial in which Hedegaard was unable to mount a defence, because under the Orwellian rules of the Danish legal system he was in effect convicted before his trial even took place. In the lower court, however, he was aquitted but only on the technicality that he had not known that these remarks, made in an interview, would be made public. A higher court, however, has now decided that Hedegaard did know that his remarks would be made public.And so he has now been convicted of racism.
This technicality should not obscure the real issue. The Danish court has convicted Hedegaard of racism for drawing attention to violence in Muslim families. The message Denmark has thus sent out is that it is racist and a crime to seek to defend Muslim women and children from the phenomenon of honour violence.
Where are the western feminists and defenders of free speech now?
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/06/2011 09:12 ||
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Great piece by our former attorney general -- the last good attorney general the USA has had. Just a taster here; go to the WSJ (not blocked by a subscription wall) for the whole thing. Must read.
By MICHAEL B. MUKASEY
Osama bin Laden was killed by Americans, based on intelligence developed by Americans. That should bring great satisfaction to our citizens and elicit praise for our intelligence community. Seized along with bin Laden's corpse was a trove of documents and electronic devices that should yield intelligence that could help us capture or kill other terrorists and further degrade the capabilities of those who remain at large.
But policies put in place by the very administration that presided over this splendid success promise fewer such successes in the future. Those policies make it unlikely that we'll be able to get information from those whose identities are disclosed by the material seized from bin Laden. The administration also hounds our intelligence gatherers in ways that can only demoralize them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/06/2011 09:13 ||
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#1
Please tell every liberal: it's not torture if afterwords all you need is a comb, Kleenex and towel (PERIOD)
Posted by: jack salami ||
05/06/2011 15:42 Comments ||
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[Dawn] BY MURTAZA RAZVI
Where is the 'honour and illusory sovereignty' brigade, of mostly the green bug bitten variety, in the aftermath of the American assault in suburban Abbottabad, one may ask. The green bug gets into the head not because you are patriotic or Mohammedan, even though which is what attracts the bug to you in the first place. The bug is not green as in the colour green in our flag, but green as in immature. Once bitten, the victims are readily swayed by the mere mention of buzzwords like Pakistain, Islam, ideology, ideological boundaries and frontiers on the one hand, and their nemeses, namely America, western culture, Hindu culture and mindset, Jews and above all, India, on the other.
More severely bitten cases may also include women and religious and ethnic minorities in the latter mentioned list, for those among women and minorities who cry murder here do so at the behest of foreign-funded NGOs and with an intent to bring a bad name to our great nation. They also bring into disrepute our great and speedy justice system, such as that dispenses justice through jirgas.
The emerging firebrand leader of this green bug bitten fellow compatriots' national honour brigade is none other than the charismatic Imran Khan. ... who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... But yesterday, he behaved very unlike himself by being so circumspect while giving his reaction to America's intrusion deep into the heart of Pakistain's military establishment on Monday morning. All he had to tell the US on the occasion was: 'Now that you've got Osama, leave us alone'. Period.
Is it that simple, Khan Sahab? Why didn't hyperboles like 'illusory sovereignty' and 'national honour', which have acquired spell-binding meanings in the Pak context of late, come to your tongue this time round? When a drone strikes a tribal area village you hold a sit-in in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar and threaten to block supplies to the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... forces in Afghanistan, but now that the Americans landed a combat mission on our soil and carried out a full blown military action to get who and what they wanted, you just ask them to leave us alone? What about the multi-million-dollar, our very own, military empire, which either did not have a clue as to what was happening under its nose or else it was in on it?
As a patriotic politician who pays his taxes and is squeaky clean of any corruption charges, why don't you ask our, and now your very own, minders why should you pay for all their oomph and luxurious lifestyle if they can't even defend this homeland of ours against foreign intrusions? We know that with you and your backers around, the defence of our ideological boundaries is impenetrable, but can you say the same about this great nation's geographical boundaries?
These and the like questions have not come to our green bug bitten hero's mind because he was not prompted to raise such uneasy issues which rub some of us in the right places the wrong way. And, by the way, what was the great Khan doing holding a presser in Sukkur the next day of the assault and asking the government to tell the truth? What truth and what government was he referring to when he knows who might actually have the answer?
This government, which can't even tell its right hand from its left, literally, as it struggles to keep both together so it can applaud itself on its dubious achievements, if any at all, is least equipped to face up to the truth, let alone tell it. Get it Mr. Khan, now that you are dealing with the same crowd that breathes down the government's neck day in and day out. That you may be being primed for premiership for that right time in the future, given you stay on the right side of the greater scheme of things, is little reason to act cocky all the time. You should know by now that this government has no answers to offer of questions that fall outside of their virtual line of control. It is no bull in a china shop, and that's why it felt free to induct new ministers on a day as relaxed or wired as Monday.
One also knows that if the great Khan thought things through for himself these very busy days, he would have rushed to Quetta where his friends from the JUI and other like-minded outfits which had joined his Peshawar sit-in were marching in the streets to condemn bin Laden's killing. But there's an anomaly of sorts here. Despite the fact that Mr. Khan does rub shoulders with all the right people on the right side of politics, he did not even consider the possibility that his newfound friends may actually have known that bin Laden was kept in a safe house in the safest of places in Pakistain. Again, it's the green bug in the head, you can bet, which won't let you think straight.
But you can also bet that the same green bug can propel Mr. Khan to power at some point in future, or at least help lend him more muscle power in the next parliament. Power comes piecemeal in this country, and is meant to be retained with blessings from the right quarters. When that rule is defied, you're either hanged or forced into exile. Should you be allowed to come back in case you're handed down a lighter sentence in the form of exile, and still you don't behave, you're welcome to get killed.
Murtaza Razvi is the Editor, Magazines, at Dawn
Posted by: Fred ||
05/06/2011 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] The culmination of years of surveillance, with Navy SEALs bursting into a residence and engaging in an epic firefight with the world's most wanted terrorist (hiding behind his wife and armed with an AK-47) in his palatial estate certainly makes for good copy, and movie studios were already lining up to turn it into feature films. The only problem was it never happened.
Not how it was told to the American public on Sunday night and Monday morning, at least. With the public still basking in the glorious victory and officials presenting it as a vindication of eternal warfare, and promising more of the same, factoids began to creep out which blew the whole story apart.
We now know that the late Osama bin Laden ... who has won the race to that place where we all eventually end up... was entirely unarmed, his wife was shot in an entirely different room. There was no "human shield," no Ak-47. Bin Laden's palatial estate, presented as damning evidence of Pak culpability, turned out to be a moldy, unairconditioned house.
White House front man Jay Carney, incredibly, is still talking about a "highly volatile firefight," but it now appears that the only armed people in the house were the Navy SEALs, and they were engaged in a "volatile firefight" with an unarmed, sickly man who they repeatedly shot. CIA director Leon Panetta speculated that bin Laden didn't have any armed guards because he assumed his information network would alert him to possible threats.
Even this official story seems to be in doubt now, however, with bin Laden's 12 year old daughter in the room at the time of his death. The report now is that bin Laden was successfully captured alive first and then summarily executed by the troops.
President B.O. has vowed not to release the photos of bin Laden's death. This is being spun as an effort to avoid a backlash, but might be an effort to manage the rate at which new evidence challenging old lies continues to come out.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/06/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
ahh Fred. If nuts can run about saying 9/11 never happened when it occurred in broad daylight before witnesses and rolling cameras then releasing the photos will not make a whit of difference.
Daughter is a witness. That will do it.
I don't care if he was armed or not or tortured for a bit. Point is he's dead and he's not coming back. Rejoice.
#2
Dead? I heard he was in a secret prison in the Negev, under the close supervision of Lynndie England, being fed a steady diet of pork chops and bacon, and terrified daily by ferocious German Sheppard dogs.
Who lift their leg on him. I'm sure I read that somewhere.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/06/2011 10:03 Comments ||
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#3
The Obambi administration continues to show how naive and simple minded they are.
A total news black out should have been put on this thing. The President's announcement should have been the first and last thing said about it.
All questions should have been answered "for matters of National Security, I cannot discuss any details of the raid"
There should have been a lid on this thing and they are letting every bureaucrat with a telephone make a statement.
No wonder this thing has turned into a convoluted mess.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
05/06/2011 10:37 Comments ||
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Well, it's about time. Finally, an eyewitness report has leaked:
"...as we topped the stairs on the the third floor, a white turban popped out briefly from a door at the end of the hall. Deuce got a shot off, but wide. We pounded down the hall, and I signaled Deuce. He nodded and kicked the door open.
"I charged in and there he was. In a spotless, white turban, with a Makarov 9 in one hand and a woman in the other. Buck naked, sporting a wicked grin and this moby woodie. "Allahuuu Ackbarrr...""
It was at that moment that Hillary's hand flew to her mouth and the video feed dropped. The expressions on the faces in the Situation Room speak for themselves.
#6
"So Osama may been unarmed when they shot him? But he was still Osama, right?"
When you have a person like that in your crosshairs, knowing his organization build bombs and are known for trickery, you do not mess around with them. Rather lose 50 of them than one SEAL Team Member any day. Kill him.
#8
The story changes just make it sound made up. The fact that they are releasing plenty of photos of BO and his crew watching, and none of the target shows what they think this is all about (I,me,myself).
And I am repulsed and insulted to hear the Pansy in Chief saying Americans who want the evidence out to show our enemies the consequences of their actions are simply "spiking the football" and showing a "Trophy."
He really doesn't get it does he?
Posted by: regular joe ||
05/06/2011 15:34 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.
