I think we can all safely guess what Islam would do to Switzerland's goat.
And the party's electoral platform invites judges to censure practices at odds with "Swiss values." These, they write, include genital excision, "crimes of honor," polygamy, and discrimination against women.
It remains rather curious how all of the above Islamic traditions are unanimously outlawed in Western countries yetsomehowtheir continued practice by Muslims both here and in their native countries is met with rather conspicuous silence. This lack of vocal objection had unduely legitimized shari'a law and represents the West's own significant contribution to its terrorist misery. Make no mistake, shari'a remains one of the absolute Root Causes of Islamic terrorism.
"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers."
The Prime Minister of Turkey says this and still we do not listen.
"arguments that serve today to justify minaret construction will be used, in turn, to justify muezzins [those who call to prayer]."
Let there be no doubt of this. As Yorkshire Miner so astutely observes: "Every concession to Islam is the thin end of an even bigger wedge." Allow minarets to be built and all that awaits is the hue and cry when they cannot be used for their intended purpose. Nevermind that very loud or amplified vocalizations at 05:00 in the morning are treated as a public disturbance by most Western civil codes.
"The minaret is a symbol of a political and aggressive Islam; it's a symbol of Islamic law. The minute you have minarets in Europe, it means Islam will have taken over."
While lightly tinged with rather justifiable paranoia, this statement is essentially true. Regardless of their ostensible function, minarets are the sharp end of political Islam. It is also important to note how Islam rarelyif everarrives without its considerable political baggage in tow. Thus, as Recep Tayyip Erdoðan himself notes, the mosques are indeed barracks.
#3
Reminds me of one time we were going to sign a contract to develop an oil field and pipeline and off-shore loading facility in a Gulf State. The signing was designated by the sheik to be held in the States at our HQ in one of America's great but looniest cities (you guess where). The Sheik's entourage was about 25 including he concubine. I got a call from the hotel about 11 at night to come down and straighten out a situation. When I arrived, there were police cars and fire trucks 'a glory surrounding the hotel. Inside was pandemonium but what I was told was that some of security entourage (e.g. Bedouin) had fixed up a spit, broke down the furniture to splintered wood and tried to roast a goat (that remarkably they brought with them and got thru customs - all pre 9/11). Of course, that set off the fire alarms since they couldn't open the windows to vent the smoke. We had to find a restaurant that would appeal to their tastes. Not a turkish one or Lebanese or even Morrocan but Mexican - I kid you not.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
11/20/2007 10:03 Comments ||
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#4
I think we can all safely guess what Islam would do to Switzerland's goat.
#1
The premise of Western policy is to tread lightly upon Muslim sensibilities. That is an error of first magnitude, for Muslim sensibilities are what prevents the Islamic world from creating modern states.
#2
Washingtons misguided effort to foster Islamic democracy might be the stupidest idea in the history of foreign policy.
A recurring meme by Spengler - and a strange one, considering the topic of the essay. Even more humilitating for a Muslim than accepting the existence of Israel is the fact of having one's country utterly defeated twice within 15 years, including occupation - by a predominantly Christian power.
In the last few months, as the successes of the Coalition's recent campaigns (both military and political) become apparent, articles are now appearing where the Iraqi "men on the street" are quoted giving full credit for the new stability to the Iraqi armed forces. There's plenty of humiliation in Iraq right now, paid for in the same coin as transacted during the US-Japanese confrontation of 1941-2007.
One thing is quite evident, though. The neo-Pagans of the last 100 years, foreign and domestic, have hated the United States of America with a white-hot ferocity. Now, why is that?
#3
Even more humilitating for a Muslim than accepting the existence of Israel is the fact of having one's country utterly defeated twice within 15 years, including occupation - by a predominantly Christian power.
Al Qaeda and, earlier, the Muslim Brotherhood are a response to this phenomenon. The logic goes like this: Muslims cannot be defeated by infidels. These countries were defeated. Therefore these countries are not Muslim. This as much as Qutb's experience in Egyptian prison is the source of takfiri ideology. It finds its precise analogy in the stories of betrayal put about by Germans after their loss of the Great War.
It may be the neocon strategy will work. But I suspect it will not. It seems more like to me we shall need a thousand Dresdens before we are on the other side of this. I pray their cities burn, not ours.
#4
Muslims cannot be defeated by infidels. These countries were defeated. Therefore these countries are not Muslim.
Which goes a long way towards explaining the endless bloodshed devolving from Muslim fixation upon being "more Islamic than thou".
It seems more like to me we shall need a thousand Dresdens before we are on the other side of this.
This continues to be the horrid self-prescription that Islam scrawls in blood at every opportunity. I repeat, Islam simply will not have it any other way. If they had the least notion of reconciliation or peaceful coexistence, we would already have seen it arise within their culture over the last several centuries. Instead, the two most unshakable foci of Islam's elliptical logic are jihad and hudna, each driving the other in a hideously barbaric symbiosis.
#8
If the Iraqi street needs to lie to itself that they are responsible for the stability in Iraq so be it. A stable democracy in Iraq is such a win againt the medieval psychos we can allow them that. I believe that they know in their heads who won even if they cannot face the facts in their hearts and korans.
Egyptian-American Writer Magdi Khalil Clashes with Saudi International Law Expert Mahmoud Mubarak on Al-Jazeera Over Holocaust, Armenian Genocide
Following are excerpts from a TV debate on U.S. and Arab approaches to genocide, with Dr. Mahmoud Al-Mubarak, a Saudi international law expert, and Egyptian-American writer Magdi Khalil. The debate aired on Al-Jazeera TV on October 23, 2007.
"Congress Should Look Into Its Own Crimes Before It Looks Into The Crimes Of Others"
Interviewer: "What's wrong with this new American resolution, commemorating the Turkish massacre of the Armenians some 100 years ago? Why all this fuss? Why are all these accusations of hypocrisy leveled against the U.S.?"
[...]
Mahmoud Al-Mubarak: "Congress should look into its own crimes before it looks into the crimes of others. Who annihilated the Indians in the U.S.? Who if not Congress passed laws in 1848 permitting the annihilation of the Indians, permitting the white man to kill the Red Indian and take his land and property? This law was passed by Congress in 1848. Even earlier, Andrew Jackson, whose portrait appears on the $20 bill, considered the killing of Indians a duty, and he even mutilated corpses of Indians. Even Roosevelt, in the mid-20th century, praised Andrew Johnson [sic], and said that Johnson had conducted a necessary and honorable battle, even when he mutilated corpses." [...]
The U.S. "Paid the Price and Acknowledged [Its Mistakes]" While Turkey "Criminalizes Whoever Says Massacre and Genocide were Committed Against the Armenians"
Magdi Khalil: "The U.S. has made mistakes in the past with regard to the blacks and the Indians, but it has paid the price and acknowledged [its mistakes]. Hundreds of books in America acknowledge what happened to the blacks and the Indians. Do not forget that the U.S. sacrificed 970,000 Americans in its Civil War in order to liberate the blacks. Afterwards, it acknowledged all [its mistakes]."
[...]
"In Turkey, there was not a single apology. Moreover, there is a Turkish law criminalizing whoever says a massacre and genocide were committed against the Armenians. By law, whoever acknowledges this is sentenced to three years in jail."
[...]
You Are Not Distinguishing "Between War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, or Annihilation"
Mahmoud Al-Mubarak: "The annihilation of the Jews in the alleged Nazi Holocaust, about which there is still much debate and to this day, we do not know the truth about it... When Iran held the international [Holocaust] conference, there was a great uproar in America and Europe about it: 'Why do you even consider and raise this question?' What kind of 'media freedom' do they want for our peoples, when they do not allow them to even think, and consider everything to be facts that came down from heaven?"
[...]
"Your guest said that [the Americans] apologized and built museums for [the Indians]. This is not enough. What have they done for the Jews with regard to the alleged Holocaust in Germany? They gave them billions in compensation. Even in Switzerland... Up until 10 years ago, Switzerland paid hundreds of billions to Jews who claimed that their money had been lost or stolen in Switzerland, because the [Swiss] had stood alongside the Germans."
[...]
Interviewer: "The Americans have killed one and a half million Iraqis to date. There are eight million deformed Vietnamese because of Agent Orange and other horrifying programs. Did you know that America, in cooperation with the Indonesian dictator Suharto, killed 1.2 million Communists in 1956? This was an annihilation of Communists. Who even mentions them? And you tell me it has atoned for its crimes? Who are you kidding?"
Magdi Khalil: "First, I would like to point out that the brother is not drawing a distinction between war crimes and crimes against humanity, or annihilation. Obviously, he is confusing all the terms. None of the things he mentioned can be called 'genocide.'
[...]
"You mentioned one and a half million Iraqis... I don't have the exact figures, but 90% of the Iraqis who died were killed by Muslims, I'm very sad to say. Who killed them? Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran. Saudi Arabia is the greatest exporter of terrorists in the Arab region."
[...]
"In 2006, America alone contributed 42.5% of the World Food Program, and 24% of the aid to refugees, who are mainly Muslim, as well as 10% of the funding of UNICEF. What have Saudi Arabia and the Islamic countries ever contributed, except destruction and sending terrorists to the whole world?" [...]
The "Holocaust Took Place 50-60 Years Ago - Yet You Deny [It]... What Do You Do [About] Ancient History, Most of Which has been Distorted in Arab And Islamic Countries?
"Documents obtained by historians say that the final solution was to annihilate the Armenians, just like the Final Solution of annihilating the Jews. This expression was engraved upon the conscience of humanity. The two greatest genocides of the 20th century are the crimes of annihilating the Armenians and the Holocaust. Despite this, not a single Arab or Islamic country acknowledges this or denounces the Turks. Unfortunately, they cast doubt about it, and refer to it as 'accusations.' The events of the Holocaust took place 50-60 years ago, yet you deny them. So what do you do with regard to ancient history, most of which has been distorted in Arab and Islamic countries? History has been distorted, fabricated, falsified, and written in a manner that does not correspond with truth, reality, or anything. If you deny the history of 50, 60, or 90 years ago, for which there are still living witnesses, what will you do with ancient history?"
[...]
"The discourse coming out of the Arab and Islamic region is a disgrace. In Darfur and south Sudan, severe [human rights] violations occur - ethnic cleansing, the murder of millions, and rape - yet no one but the West exposes what is happening in south Sudan and Darfur. The New York Times was the first to raise this issue, and it is the West that is now defending the rights of the Muslims in Darfur. It is the West that attacked Serbia. It is the West that established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. It is the West that protects the independence of Kosovo. There is no partial justice..."
"There is No Justice At All in The Arab Region.... They Are Used To Condemning Everything, and Doing Nothing but Supporting Terrorism and Extremism"
"There is no justice at all in the Arab region. There is only criticism of any spark of hope for international justice, and criticism of any glimmer of hope for international justice, and criticism of any glimmer of hope for the promotion of human rights, and the value of human beings. They are used to condemning everything, and doing nothing but supporting terrorism and extremism. You tell me - the U.N. report on the Somali Islamic Courts Union, the international reports on the Taliban...
"Who created the Taliban? Who created the Somali Islamic Courts Union, according to the U.N. reports? It was Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Who produced extremism and terrorism? Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan."
[...]
"Give Us One Example When You Supported Human Rights In Any Country"
Interviewer: "With regard to Darfur, are you trying to convince the Arab world that the American wolf, as Dr. Al-Mubarak called him, is shedding a tear over what is happening in Darfur? It is the fragmentation of Sudan, the partitioning of Sudan - the partitioning of something that is already partitioned. There is oil in Darfur, and they don't care about all the Arabs and Muslims put together."
Magdi Khalil: "That's all nonsense. That deceiving propaganda is all around you - oil and all that... Do you know how much was spent on Iraq? Even if America were to take Iraq's oil for the next 200 years, it would not compensate for what it has spent on Iraq. You are used to spreading delusions, lies, and deceiving propaganda. Give us one example when you supported human rights in any country, one example when you did something good - just once in your lives, when an Arab or Islamic country could say that it supported something good."
[...]
"I call upon the Arab and Islamic countries to acknowledge the two worst genocides perpetrated in the 20th century - the Holocaust and the Armenian massacre. I call upon them to rise to the level of humanity."
#1
Interviewer: "With regard to Darfur, are you trying to convince the Arab world that the American wolf, as Dr. Al-Mubarak called him, is shedding a tear over what is happening in Darfur? It is the fragmentation of Sudan, the partitioning of Sudan - the partitioning of something that is already partitioned. There is oil in Darfur, and they don't care about all the Arabs and Muslims put together."
Magdi Khalil: "That's all nonsense. That deceiving propaganda is all around you - oil and all that... Do you know how much was spent on Iraq? Even if America were to take Iraq's oil for the next 200 years, it would not compensate for what it has spent on Iraq. You are used to spreading delusions, lies, and deceiving propaganda. Give us one example when you supported human rights in any country, one example when you did something good - just once in your lives, when an Arab or Islamic country could say that it supported something good."
#2
It's a rare day when Al-Jezz viewers get a chance to hear the truth.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
11/20/2007 14:26 Comments ||
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#3
Did you read on other tripe worp blurb about Nakey Nake and Nude Guy learn his craft atop astride his Bogus Femme Fatale Prof , DUH ?! It is , a female , Doofusius ! Nakey Nake Lady is Bogey Prof of a person teaching him Nude in bed getting a Oral Exam without her giving him : Head , DOH !! She lies on top of him in Reverse Missionary Position , though ! She moves and jiggles and gets to fuck him when everything is :FIN ! Session : ENDT ! 100 % : Correct , DUH ! Which she does : DUZ ! DUH ! Then this weird sequence is lady shows : Government Appreciation Award prior to deserve in 5 yrs . Time ! Go Figure ! * No Tyme : Toulouse ! * Then he gets University Award before the 4 years ! Then Valedictorian Does : Heil , you : Graduate ! Hens , Applaud !
#5
It's not Joe. He makes a lot more sense. I'm flushing this guy's droppings.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/20/2007 20:02 Comments ||
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#6
I doubt Khalil would have gotten any air time on al-Jizz if it weren't for Petreus and the surge (good name for a band). As Binny says, the Arabs follow the strong horse and it is now real clear which was the stronger. Time to start reaping the victory dividend.
The following is an editorial by Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli, editor of the MEMRI Economic Blog (www.memrieconomicblog.org ), on the recent OPEC meeting.
This past weekend, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) held a summit meeting - the third in the history of the cartel that was established in 1960. Of the 13 heads of the member states, 11 were present at the two day-meeting in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Conspicuous in his absence was the Libyan leader, Muammar al-Qadhafi, whose large entourage, including his smartly-attired Fembots female body guards who always accompany him in his foreign travels, would have created quite a problem in the conservative kingdom.
Any gap created by the absence of Qadhafi was more than adequately filled by the presence of the two global demagogues and soul mates, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, whose devotion to roguish behavior is exceeded only by their hatred of America. Warming up for the summit, Ahmadinejad penned a personal letter to French President Nicholas Sarkozy, calling him "a little boy with no experience." The respectable daily Le Monde AKA the french NYT called the letter "crude."
Technical Mishap Brings out Saudi-Iran Disagreement on Agenda
Preceding the official opening of the summit scheduled for Saturday was the meeting of the foreign, finance, and oil ministers of the member states. That meeting, which convened the night before the summit, was supposed to be closed to the media. However, because of a technical mishap, a microphone was left open and the "off-the-record" meeting was seen live on the large TV screens installed in the hall where journalists were congregated. What become quickly evident is the sharp disagreement between Saudi Arabia's foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who was chairing the meeting, and Iran's foreign minister Menouchehr Mottaki.
In a written statement, Mottaki expressed his country's demand that the final communiqué of the summit express the member states' concerns about the "persistent decline in the exchange rate of the dollar" (in which currency oil price is denominated). The Venezuelan minister of oil took the floor to support the Iranian position. The chairman, Prince Saud, rejected the position taken by the two speakers, and, supported by Ecuador's leftist regime, asserted that the subject was "sensitive" and could lead to "the collapse of the dollar" and would "aggravate the difficulties [the members] are in."
Prince Saud also rejected another proposal made by the Iranian foreign minister that the issue of the dollar should be referred to OPEC's ministers of finance. He said, "The very indication that we have designated to the finance ministers the task of looking into this problem would mean that a decision on the subject was taken by OPEC." The Saudi position was reiterated by OPEC's secretary general Abdullah al-Badri, who stated categorically: "There will be no mention of the dollar in the final communiqué."
In an article published in Tehran Times today, Javad Yarjani, head of Iran's OPEC affairs, denied that there were "structural differences between Tehran and Riyadh."
Chavez and Ahmadinejad Seek to Politicize Oil Summit
As the outgoing chairman of the previous summit, which was held in Caracas in 2000, Hugo Chavez opened the meeting. As one would expect, he preached socialism to his Saudi hosts and their brethren in the Gulf, who are continuing to move their national economies into open and competitive market regimes just as fast as Chavez moves his country in an entirely opposite direction. After threatening that the price of oil would go into "hundred of dollars" [per barrel] if the U.S. "were crazy enough to attack Iran or to threaten Venezuela," and after telling his audience how, at the age of six in 1960, he followed with admiration the anti-colonial struggle of Algeria's current president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Chavez called on the leaders of OPEC to place their revenues in a special bank to support their own people as well as poor people everywhere. According to Reuters, the octogenarian Saudi monarch sat "stony faced through Chavez's 35 minutes speech," and he was heard joking to the Venezuelan president afterwards: "You went on a bit." In fact, the Saudis have done their utmost to deny the Venezuelan leader an opportunity for grandstanding.
In his statement at the meeting, Iran's Ahmadinejad called on OPEC to discard the dollar in favor of "a combination of hard currencies, or to create an entirely new hard currency as a basis for transactions." Ahmadinejad also called on the members to create a new stock exchange for oil to serve "humanitarian objectives and national interests." He denounced "some Arrogant countries" which, in his words, have put an end to peace and expanded the threats of war in some rich areas of the world.
Final Communique
In OPEC's final communiqué, the heads of states pledged to provide "adequate, timely and sufficient" oil supplies to the market. Saudi Arabia prevailed and the dollar was not mentioned even once. Nor was there any mention of increasing oil production.
Warning About Iran's Threats from Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed
The most profound comment on the oil summit was made by Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed, the director general of Saudi al-Arabiya TV which operates from the United Arab Emirates. In an Op-ed in the pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Rashed had this to say:
"The Riyadh summit is a political, not an oil summit Heavy responsibility falls specifically on Iran far more than on Venezuela, not only because of the volume of Iranian oil, but because of the quarters it occupies in respect to the rest of the Gulf oil countries. It neighbors Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and five other Gulf countries. Venezuela could perhaps raise the price of oil by fiddling with its quota of production or by its threatening statements, but it is not as dangerous as Iran, which threatens 18 million barrels of oil produced within short range of its missiles. Hence we believe that Iran will not be permitted to control the destiny of the region, whatever defense or political justifications it offers [for its nuclear weapons]. And this [Iranian threat] will be translated later, whether within a year or a decade, into another major war." [1]
According to foreign reports, Israel destroyed a nuclear weapons installation in Syria in September. Never has a larger story been pushed under the rug by so many so quickly. What are we to make of this?
Over the weekend former federal prosecutor and the head of the non-governmental International Intelligence Summit, John Loftus, released a report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. His report was based on a private study of captured Iraqi documents. These were the unread Arabic language documents that U.S. forces seized, but had not managed to translate after overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 2003.
After a prolonged battle between Congress and then director of U.S. National Intelligence John Negroponte, President George W. Bush ordered those documents posted on a public access Web site last year. They were taken down after it was discovered that among the Iraqi documents were precise descriptions of how to build nuclear weapons.
As Loftus summarized, "The gist of the new evidence is this: Roughly one-quarter of Saddam's WMD was destroyed under UN pressure during the early to mid 1990s. Saddam sold approximately another quarter of his weapons stockpile to his Arab neighbors during the mid-to-late-1990's. The Russians insisted on removing another quarter in the last few months before the war. The last remaining WMD, the contents of Saddam's nuclear weapons labs, were still inside Iraq on the day when the coalition forces arrived in 2003. His nuclear weapons equipment was hidden in enormous underwater warehouses beneath the Euphrates River. Saddam's entire nuclear inventory was later stolen from these warehouses right out from under the Americans' noses."
Loftus then cites Israeli sources who claim that the Iraqi nuclear program was transferred to the Deir az Zour province in Syria.
Loftus's report jibes with a report published on the Web site of Kuwait's Al Seyassah's newspaper on September 25, 2006. That report, which I noted last November, cited European intelligence sources and claimed that in late 2004 Syria began developing a nuclear program near its border with Turkey. Syria's program, which was run by President Bashar Assad's brother Maher and defended by an Iranian Revolutionary Guards brigade, had by mid-2006 "reached the stage of medium activity." The Kuwaiti report stated that the Syrian nuclear program was based "on equipment and materials that the sons of the deposed Iraqi leader, Uday and Qusai transferred to Syria by using dozens of civilian trucks and trains, before and after the U.S.-British invasion in March 2003." The program, which was run by Iranians with assistance from Iraqi scientists and scientists from the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union, "was originally built on the remains of the Iraqi program after it was wholly transferred to Syria."
These reports and several others like them which have surfaced over the past several years tell us interesting and disturbing things. First, they show just how difficult it is to gather accurate information on the status of weapons of mass destruction programs.
From 1991 Gulf War until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs were a top issue on the international agenda. And yet, year in and year out, UN inspectors, who were on the ground throughout most of the period, failed to provide an accurate picture of those programs. Indeed, the documents and reports regarding the transfer of those programs to Syria show those inspection reports were wildly off the mark.
And not only did the UN fail. The U.S. itself also failed. After invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam's regime, the U.S. military and intelligence arms took almost no action to ensure that suspected sites were secured and searched. The U.S. failed to pursue clear intelligence reports indicating that in the weeks before the invasion, suspicious truck convoys had traveled from Iraq to Syria carrying what were presumed to be weapons of mass destruction components.
As for Syria, still today, after Israel reportedly destroyed the Syrian nuclear installation at Deir az Zour, the U.S. and the international community as a whole behave as though nothing is out of order. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her Syrian counterpart Waleed Muallem on November 3 and invited Syria to demand the Golan Heights from Israel at her peace conference at Annapolis later this month.
The Syrian and Iraqi cases also show that political courage and intellectual honesty are the keys to intelligence collection and analysis regarding weapons of mass destruction programs. When leaders and intelligence officials are uninterested in finding information about these programs, they are guaranteed to discover nothing. And when they wish to do nothing about information that they have, they can easily argue that their information was inconclusive. In contrast, if they decide to act on intelligence information that challenges preconceived notions and entrenched political interests, they are guaranteed to suffer the condemnations of those who have an interest in continuing to downplay or deny the dangers those programs manifest.
Against the backdrop of the international and American inability and unwillingness to handle the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs, the reports coming out from Iran regarding the mullocracy's nuclear program and the American and Israeli responses to it are nothing less than terrifying.
Last week, the IAEA acknowledged that Iran is currently operating 3,000 centrifuges. At this rate of uranium enrichment, Iran will be capable of producing an atomic bomb in a year. This means that diplomacy today is a dead letter. It is too late to talk Iran out of its nuclear program.
Perhaps more disturbing than the IAEA report - written by Muhammad El Baradei, who with the exception of the mullahs themselves is probably the man least interested in taking action against Iran's program - were the Israeli and U.S. responses to it. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly told his ministers that Israel needs to develop contingencies for the day after Iran joins the nuclear club.
The U.S. is not merely developing contingencies for the day after. It is working to whitewash Iran's role in fomenting the insurgency in Iraq in an effort to restart direct negotiations with Teheran. According to the New York Sun, Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates are so eager to ascribe a decrease in Iraqi violence to Iran that they are willing to pooh-pooh the U.S. military's own achievements in its "surge" in Iraq.
The danger implicit in the U.S. and Israeli decisions to plan for the day after Iran gets the bomb is made clear by two recent developments.
First, Sunday The New York Times reported that since Sept. 11, the U.S. has been assisting the Pakistanis in securing their nuclear facilities. Speaking to the Times, John E. McLaughlin, the former deputy director of the CIA, said, "I am confident of two things, that the Pakistanis are very serious about securing this material, but also that someone in Pakistan is very intent on getting their hands on it."
This story makes clear that even if a regime is considered trustworthy, if threatened by jihadists there is a danger that its nuclear weapons will fall into their hands. If that happens, the notion of deterrence is thrown out the window.
The latest developments in the investigation of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires provide even more reason for worry. Thirteen years ago, Iran ordered its terror arm Hizbullah to attack the AMIA building. Eighty-five people were killed.
Two weeks ago, Argentina requested that Interpol issue international arrest warrants against five Iranians and one Lebanese man implicated in the bombing. Interpol complied. Last week, Iran responded to Interpol's move by demanding that Interpol issue arrest warrants against five Argentines involved in the investigation of the AMIA bombing. Iran accused them of the "crime" of insulting Iran.
This is an unsettling state of affairs on several levels. The AMIA bombing involved a state contracting a terror group to carry out a massive attack against innocent civilians simply because they were Jewish. For years, for political reasons, the Argentine government derailed its own investigation of the attack. Indeed, it took 14 long years for Argentina to request that Interpol issue arrest warrants.
And then, in a sign of contempt for the international community, Iran announced its counter-warrant demand. And the world has said nothing.
The point is, even if one believes the dubious argument that the Iranian regime can be trusted with nuclear weapons, given the AMIA precedent there is no reason to doubt that Iran would eventually transfer its weapons to Hizbullah or some other Iranian terror group to detonate in Israel.
What the Iranians learned, and indeed what Israel should have learned from the investigation of the AMIA bombing, is that no one will automatically point a finger at Iran for an attack carried out by Iran's terror proxies.
And so we return to Iran's nuclear bomb program, which like the Syrian and Iraqi programs, is partially hidden from view, but which the pro-Iranian IAEA claims is years away from completion. And we return to the U.S. and Israel acting as though it is possible to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.
We look at all of this, and we ask: How can Washington and Jerusalem be so irresponsible? We look at Olmert's reported willingness to countenance a nuclear-armed Iran, and we wonder, how can he try to wish away an impending threat of nuclear annihilation?
Posted by: anonymous5089 ||
11/20/2007 14:44 ||
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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.
The following is an editorial by Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli, editor of the MEMRI Economic Blog (www.memrieconomicblog.org ), on the recent OPEC meeting.
