The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is AJ Strata’s “2006 Democrat Contract With Al Qaeda.” Finishing second was Shrinkwrapped’s take on Hollywood “The Academy Awards, Pan-Sexuality, Narcissism, & Loneliness.”
Coming out on top in the Non Council catgegory was The Anchoress for “Wellstoning the King Funeral.”
If you’d like to participate in the weekly Watcher’s Council vote, go here and follow instructions.
When I first heard of the existence of the Saddam Tapes, I was mildly interested. After all, from a purely academic point of view, it would be fascinating to listen to the dictator and try and discover how his mind worked. Saddam is surely one of the most destructive leaders that lived during the 20th century. Not quite in the Hitler/Stalin/Mao class but rather more of a second tier thug, easily as evil as Idi Amin or Slobodon Milosivec.
But when John Loftus, the organizer of this weekend’s “Intelligence Summit” came out and said that there was a “smoking gun” in these tapes that proved the existence of WMD in Iraq prior to our invasion, I was skeptical. I remembered from the Duelfer Report that close aides to Saddam had routinely lied to the dictator about his own WMD program so any conversations about WMD on the tapes would have to be listened to bearing that in mind.
And I also had to consider the source himself. Yesterday, I said that Loftus was considered a “gadfly” by the intelligence establishment. As it turns out, I was being too kind by half. Here’s Byron York on Loftus:
I first encountered his name in the fall of 2003, when I was working on a story about Bush hatred. I was looking at the people who claim that the Bush family got its wealth from financing the Nazis, and I discovered that one of the sacred texts of that particular worldview is a book, The Secret War Against the Jews, by the authors Mark Aarons and…John Loftus. In 1995, when the book appeared, Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman, who can reasonably be counted on to speak out against people who financed the Nazis, called it “so exaggerated, so scantily documented, so overwrought and convoluted in its presentation, that Loftus and Aarons render laughable their claim to offer ‘a glimpse of the world as it really is.’”
A curious gent, this Loftus fellow. It seems also that he is absolutely convinced of a connection between the Enron scandal and…(wait for it) 9/11:
In the article, Loftus reports that the now-defunct energy company had a contract with the Taliban to build a pipeline, and that Vice President Dick Cheney, determined to help out Enron, forbade U.S. intelligence sources from investigating the Enron/Taliban/al Qaeda connection in the months leading up to the September 11 terrorist attacks. After outlining this somewhat Fahrenheit 9/11-like theory, Loftus concludes, “The Enron cover-up confirms that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure or a law enforcement failure (at least not entirely). Instead, it was a foreign policy failure of the highest order. If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney’s whole house of cards will collapse.”
Does his kookiness rule out the possibility that there might be something valuable on the Saddam tapes? Not necessarily, although for the sake of credibility, one needs to look not only at the message, but the messenger as well.
And in this case, the messenger - the person with actual possession of the tapes - was a former weapons inspector, former translator at Gitmo, and a confessed spy named Bill Tierney.
Actually, Tierney was spying for us while working for UNSCOM which is OK by me but probably didn’t sit well with those fairminded, impartial countries like Libya and France. The problem with Mr. Tierney - depending on who you talk to - is that he is either a certifiable wacko or someone who likes to exaggerate things a little. Taking him at his word is hazardous to the truth.
In 2003, in the immediate aftermath of the Iraq invasion he told Sean Hannity:
“In addition, Tierney said that he has told our government where Hussein has hidden an underground uranium plant. “I can drive there with my eyes shut.”
Also in 2003, Tierney appeared on George Noory’s Coast to Coast radio show and made some startling admissions:
Bill Tierney, a former weapons inspector who worked with UNSCOM in Iraq in the late 1990s, was the guest for the first two hours of Friday night’s show. He believes that Iraq has nuclear capability and the intention to use such weapons. Further, Tierney claims that he has pinpointed a hidden location in Iraq (map here) where there is a uranium enriching processing facility. “You can’t put an underground chamber on the back of a truck,” Tierney said, indicating that if an inspection were made in this suggested area, the Iraqis would not be able to haul off the evidence.
Tierney’s methods of ascertaining this location were rather unconventional. “I would ask God and just get a sense if something was valid or not, and then know if I needed to pursue it,” he said. His assessments through prayer were then confirmed to him by a friend’s clairvoyant dream, where he was able to find the location on a map. “Everything she said lined up. This place meets the criteria,” Tierney said of a power generator plant near the Tigris River that he believes is actually a cover for a secret uranium facility.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is not the way one should go about trying to ascertain whether Saddam Hussein had WMD. It may be a good way to divine a well or fortell the future. But when it comes to “smoking guns” about WMD, I’d trust Michael Moore before I trusted this guy.
An indication of just how loony this whole business with the tapes and the “Intelligence Summit” has gotten is that two top intelligence professionals and dedicated public servants - James Woolsey and John Deutch - have resigned from participation in the event. It seems that there are some very shady characters behind the scenes. Mr. York:
Now, the Sun reports that Woolsey and Deutch resigned from Loftus’ group because of their concern over “new information they received regarding one of the summit’s biggest donors, Michael Cherney, an Israeli citizen who has been denied a visa to enter America because of his alleged ties to the Russian mafia.”
Does any of this matter as to the legitimacy of the tapes? Not really, although according to ABC News, the tapes were taken from the FBI where presumably Mr. Tierney was translating them. As for their impact, Lori Byrd has it about right:
If the tapes are authentic, the discussion of efforts to deceive the inspectors and to be ready to quickly resume WMD production is huge news, but it obviously will not be reported that way. As I said yesterday, it is going to take a heck of a lot to convince the media, and those on the left, that Bush didn’t lie about Saddam’s WMD. Scratch that. They already know he didn’t lie about it. It will take a heck of a lot to convince them to admit that Bush didn’t lie about it.
We already knew there were chemical weapon precursors on site with the artillery shells to deliver them. The fact that they weren’t assembled was the reason given for not listing them as “stockpiled” WMD. Be that as it may, Lori has a good point. The tapes confirm once and for all that Saddam was a threat. Given the left’s eagerness toward lifting sanctions on the dictator’s regime in 2000, it would only have been a matter of time before he had his labs of death up and running again.
There are still nearly two million documents and tapes that our government, for whatever reason, has refused to look at in any meaningful way. The historical value of those documents alone is astonishing, a priceless glimpse into one of the 20th century’s most organized criminal regimes. While it is doubtful the whole truth of Saddam’s WMD’s will ever come out, those documents and tapes can answer other questions that are just as valuable in aiding our understanding of the organized terror and calculated evil that was Saddam and his regime.
UPDATE 2/17
Add to the list of distinuished Americans who have pulled out of the “Intelligence Summit” Debbie Schlussel who has some additional shocking information about John Loftus.
My House was down for almost 7 hours this morning.
It’s a long boring story about server crashes and transfers here, there, and everywhere. And whole lot of frustration, anger, gnashing of teeth, and throwing things.
I was barely able to save my American Thinker post this morning and had to finish it up on my Notebook.
The hosting company has made arrangements that satisfactorily compensate us for the downtime.
I hope some lefty troll comes by or I see some rot thrown up by a liberal about the Saddam tapes. I’m in a rather combative mood today.
Don’t cross me…
This article originally appears in The American Thinker
There is a new line of attack on Republicans undertaken by the liberal netroots that has the online “Reality Based Community” nodding their heads in agreement and patting themselves on the back for being so very clever.
It’s a variation on the theme that all Bush supporters are unthinking automatons who blindly follow the President no matter where he leads and any opposition to “Dear Leader” is criticized as coming from leftist traitors. The variation being that Bush supporters have no ideology, they’re not conservatives themselves in any real sense, and that it therefore become easy to equate opposition to the President with a kind of apostasy that would be familiar to supporters of the Spanish Inquisition.
Having come under attack several times myself from the right and had my conservative manhood questioned on a host of issues, this theme is one that I feel more than competent in addressing. Because at bottom, this is an argument that reveals one of the major differences between the Republican and Democratic parties; in the intraparty struggles to determine which ideas are ascendant, Republicans are the only ones arguing among themselves.
Conservative critics of the President certainly have a lot to complain about and one could write a book cataloging the Administration’s Crimes against the Right. The litany of deviation by the Administration is as familiar to most conservatives as the Baltimore Catechism was to me and my classmates in my youth. Mortal sins against sound fiscal policy. A slothful prosecution of the War on Terror. An indolent and wasteful reconstruction effort in Iraq. A gluttonous new prescription drug plan. And a prideful approach to judicial nominees, although the President’s last two picks for the Supreme Court have redeemed his efforts somewhat.
But beyond that, criticizing the President is bound to draw considerable fire from the right. A case in point is conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan whose daily writings now appear on the Time Magazine website. Sullivan was at one time one of the most eloquent defenders of our liberation of Iraq. But following the release of the first batch of Abu Ghraib photos (and some would say Bush’s support for the anti-gay marriage amendment) Sullivan turned against the President with a ferocity that was startling in its intensity.
The reaction on the right was predictable. Sullivan was called every name in the book and then some. He has even been tarred with the moniker “liberal” for his echoing Democratic talking points on the war. Some questioned his sanity. And that was before he endorsed John Kerry for President.
Clearly Mr. Sullivan has major disagreements with the Administration. But is Andrew Sullivan still a conservative?
I support almost all of Bush’s tax cuts (I support the estate tax) but also believe in balanced budgets and spending restraint (heretic!); I oppose affirmative action; I oppose hate crime laws; I respect John Kerry’s military service; I believe all abortion is morally wrong and that Roe vs Wade was dreadful constitutional law (but I do favor legal first trimester abortions); I support states’ rights, especially in social policy, such as marriage; I oppose the expansion of the welfare state, as in the Medicare prescription drug plan; I supported John Roberts’ nomination and Sam Alito’s; I believe in a firm separation of religion and politics.
Sullivan’s protestation that he is still a conservative rings true. His major sin then appears to be that he is not a good Republican. Or is he? As far as I know, Mr. Sullivan never claimed to be a “party man.” His principled opposition to the war then is based on an independent view of the President and his policies.
His many and vociferous critics are not all hero worshipping Bush minions. Many are harsh critics of the President themselves. To say that Sullivan’s substantive critics have no ideology is absurd and reflects a superficiality and shallowness of thought that seems endemic on the left these days. The broad brush strokes used to paint those who criticize Bush critics as simpletons does not reflect the spirited debate going on in conservative circles about both the nature of conservatism and how its tenets can be applied to governing a 21st century industrialized democracy at war.
Those arguments have no parallel on the left. Their debates deal with tactics, not ideology. The left took care of its rebels a long time ago, consigning them to the outer reaches and making it clear that orthodoxy was more important than ideas.
Of course, there is a certain amount of party discipline that needs to be enforced when talking about the fate of Bush critics. With a fanatical opposition that hates the very name of the President coupled with a rabidly hostile press corps, any major deviation from the party line is likely to result in wails of betrayal by the party faithful. My own experience with going against the grain has taught me that for the most part, these criticisms can be ignored simply because they are the product of emotionalism. There are far more conservatives who respect and appreciate other points of view - even if they disagree vehemently - than there are blind partisans. For instance, no one that I know would ever accuse Pat Buchanan of being a liberal even though he is one of the Administration’s harshest critics. Buchanan and the so-called paleo-conservatives have been marginalized not because they are Bush critics but because they are out of step with the rest of the conservative movement.
Then there is the case of former Reagan Administration domestic policy aid Bruce Bartlett whose forthcoming book on the Bush Administration entitled Impostor: Why George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.” is sure to be a big hit on the liberal cocktail circuit. Bartlett was once senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a research group based in Dallas. In an interview with Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times, Bartlett avers that he was fired from the Institute because his outspoken criticism of Bush made it difficult for the think tank to raise money from Republican donors.
Bartlett insists he’s still a Republican despite calling Mr. Bush a “pretend conservative” among other things. He believes that like Richard Nixon, Bush uses the right to pursue a decidedly unconservative agenda. There are some conservatives who would agree with that assessment although no one doubts the President’s heartfelt devotion to social issues that are near and dear to the hearts of many conservatives.
That said, Bartlett is complaining because no conservative think tank will hire him. Is this an example of slavish Bush supporters marching in lockstep to deny an Administration critic a livelihood simply because he criticized “Dear Leader?”
Posh! Bartlett refers to himself as “radioactive” since he began to voice his criticisms of Bush. There is a difference between criticizing Bartlett’s ideas and not doling out one’s hard earned cash to anyone who would employ him. I’m sure Mr. Bartlett is still a good Republican and conservative. But for anyone who would hire him, he would certainly poison the well as far as contributors were concerned. In the marketplace of ideas, Bartlett is running into the reality that his thoughts aren’t very popular among conservatives. Why this should be a surprise to him is puzzling.
When all is said and done, the Republican critics of the President come in all shapes and sizes with some attacking him from the right and others, like Senator Chuck Hagel, coming at Bush from the left. To try and argue that these critics aren’t for the most part still Republicans or have changed their conservative beliefs is wrong. For myself, as someone who voted for Ronald Reagan three times, carefully writing in his name in 1976, to call me anything but a loyal Republican and true blue conservative would be laughable.
Which is what most liberal critiques of Republicans end up as anyway.
This week’s Carnival of the Clueless has been cancelled.
I realize what a disappointment this is to many of you, especially the bloggers who so generously contribute their posts. However, after working on this week’s Carnival for more than 2 hours, clicking on “Save,” and then watching as all that work disappeared into the ether when my site went down for the second time today was just a little too much to bear.
The Carnival of the Clueless will reappear at its regularly scheduled time next week. That is to say, it might appear Monday, more likely Tuesday, and maybe even Wednesday.
UPDATE:
Just received a long email from my hosting company apologizing for the down time today. They’re moving me to another server because they say the problem is due to “a suspected bug discovered in the current build of MYSQL that is running on our dual processor servers.”
Yadayadayada…Fat lot of good that does me. This is the third time I’ve lost a post. I guess I gotta start learning to “Save” my stuff more often.
From Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker, we hear the news that the “Saddam Tapes” which were scheduled to be unveiled at the Intelligence Summit this weekend will instead air tonight on ABC’s Nightline.
The tapes, which have been verified by the House Intelligence Committee, are said to contain conversations between Sadaam and his top aides well into the year 2000 talking about hiding WMD, attacking Washington, and other topics of interest. Drudge just broke the story and we have this that just popped up on the CNS News Service website:
(CNSNews.com) - Secret audiotapes of Saddam Hussein discussing ways to attack America with weapons of mass destruction will be the subject of an ABC “Nightline” program Wednesday night, a former federal prosecutor told Cybercast News Service.
The tapes are being called the “smoking gun” of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. The New York Sun reported that the tapes have been authenticated and currently are being reviewed by the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The panel’s chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), declined to give the Sun details of the content or context of the recordings, saying only that they were provided to his committee by former federal prosecutor John Loftus.
Loftus has been tight-lipped about the tapes, telling the Sun only that he received them from a “former American military intelligence analyst.” However, on Wednesday he told Cybercast News Service, “Saddam’s tapes confirm he had active CW [chemical weapons] and BW [biological weapons] programs that were hidden from the UN.”
First of all, a word of caution is in order.
The Duelfer report made clear that interviews with dozens of Saddam loyalists revealed that his top aides routinely lied to the dictator about having WMD. However, this could be a cover story by the aides who could have worked one up prior to the invasion. Or, it could be the truth. It could very well be that Saddam was talking about WMD he didn’t have.
That said, the program should give us a fascinating glimpse into the mind of one of the most brutal dictators in history.
Another aspect of this story that should give us pause is that the tapes come to us via a man named John Loftus. Loftus is known as something of a gadfly in intelligence circles and his book about the Nazi connection to the Vatican and American intelligence has been criticized for sloppy research. That said, Loftus really has nothing to gain from trying to perpetrate a fraud and the House Intelligence Committee felt them important enough to verify and examine.
Will the tapes change any minds? Not very likely. They may cause a flurry of “I told you so’s” on the right and “it doesn’t matter’s” on the left. But beyond that, the MSM could be sitting on a 155mm binary nerve gas shell and still insist it needed more proof of Iraq WMD.
UPDATE
Hah!
Lori Byrd beats the rush so to speak and issues a statement proclaiming her belief that there were WMD in Iraq all along. She’s got the links to prove it, too!
UPDATE II
Mr. Lifson is on a roll today:
Slowly, very slowly, we are beginning to discover what happened to the WMDs of Saddam. The left and the antique media have made it an article of faith that there never were any WMDs, and that “Bush lied.†So deep is their investment in a political position premised on this conclusion that they will pay no attention to contrary evidence.
Via Peter Glover’s website Wires from the bunker, we learn of an interview between Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a southern regional commander for Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen militia in the late 1980s and a personal friend of the dictator and Ryan Mauro of Worldthreats.com.
Only two weeks ago, General Sada, formerly Sadaam’s no 2 Air Force Commander, told the New York Sun that Sadaam’s WMD was moved to Syria just six weeks before the US-led invasion. Now Ali Ibrahim confirms this and explains the underlying strategy of Saddam.
Read the whole thing for a pretty plausible explanation. The important thing is, Mr. Ibrahim confirms what Mr. Sada said 3 weeks ago about WMD being flown out of the country to Syria.
So what does all this mean?
As I said in the post, this is not likely to change many minds about whether or not the Iraq war was worth it. And failing Syria coming out and admitting that Saddam shipped his WMD’s prior to the invasion to Damascus, it’s not likely that the “WMD to Syria” story will get much play in the MSM.
In the end, the more evidence that emerges that Bush wasn’t lying about WMD, the more the media and the Democrats will play down the story. A sad commentary on the times.
UPDATE III
Goldstein weighs in with his usual perspicacity:
What will be most interesting to watch is the amount of the coverage this receives. I suspect the next stage of legacy media denial will come in the form of, “because ‘intel agencies’ and other unnamed sources have expressed no clear consensus about what these tapes signify, we are simply being circumspect about our reporting.â€
Of course, had somebody suspected Dick Cheney of keeping a flask of whiskey in his hunting vest, that would be a different story entirely…*
Yep.
And Jeff also has a blurb from the Newsweek Disaster Tag Team of Isikoff and Hosenball who inform us that 1) this is old news. 2) it’s not really important. 3) intelligence professionals aren’t impressed.
I find that last assertion laughable. There is no group in the United States of America with more of a vested, vital interest in our not being able to find any Iraq WMD’s than our so-called intelligence professionals.
Entire careers are at stake here. To believe anything about Iraq WMD’s coming from that crew is loony.
UPDATE IV
I just heard excerpts of the tapes. Nothing conclusive. Nothing earth shattering. Saddam was a thug who wanted WMD. We knew that. Did he have any at the time we invaded? Yes. Massive stockpiles? Probably not. Enough that he would have moved them to Syria? Unknown.
Does it matter anymore in a political sense? Not to me. Taking out Saddam was the logical next step in the War on Terror.
Representative Hoekstra of the House Intelligence Committee reminds us there are still nearly two million pages of documents from this thug’s regime. If history is any experience, it’s best we get to reading that stuff.
The West German Goverment requested we return all the documents that fell into our hands at the end of World War II in 1953. How long before the new Iraq government does the same?
The site was down for about an hour due to unknown server issues.
Since many of the blogs that use my hosting company are conservative political blogs who have published the Mohammed cartoons, I certainly hope that the server was not subjected to some kind of denial of service attack.
Then again, I may be paranoid and will start to see 6 foot tall rabbits who wear bowler hats and are dressed in tuxedos.
I’ll let you know…
I swore I wasn’t going to publish any of the Mohammed cartoons on this website, mostly out of respect for the religion itself but also because I didn’t really see the need.
If one were to examine every word I’ve written about the Cartoon Jihad, they would find an uncompromising support for freedom of speech. I never criticized anyone’s right to publish them. And where I originally believed that as a matter of empathizing with people who experienced pain at the thought of the prophet being mocked, I have since been enlightened as the so-called moderates shamelessly began to use the controversy for their own ends by using publicity surrounding the violence as a way to draw attention to their own concerns.
But I still had no intention of publishing these cartoons. Until today.
There is a group of Muslim hackers who have declared war on websites that have dared show the offending cartoons. They have attacked more than 1800 Danish websites alone, defacing them with their barely literate scrawl.
And now…they’re coming after us.
One of the on-line leaders in the movement to show solidarity with the Danes and other newspapers around the world who have dared to show the cartoons has been Michelle Malkin. Last Tuesday Mrs. Malkin was subjected to a foreign based denial of service attack. And last night, her hosting company passed along some disturbing news:
Last night, my hosting service notified me that it is receiving ongoing threats from individuals vowing to take down this site–and others along with it–which will presumably continue until I take down the cartoons. For now, we are on guard and continuing with business as usual. But you should know there’s something much wider and deeper going on.
Go to Michelle’s site and read up on the effort of these cyber jihadists and ask yourself; Can I afford to sit on the sidelines any longer? There is a time and a place for everything. This is a time for outright defiance. It is a time for solidarity not just with Malkin but with every blogger, right or left, and every website that publishes these cartoons. This has gone way beyond any kind of cultural sensitivity issue or respect for the belief of others. It is now our beliefs that are under attack and we simply must defend them.
So I proudly join those who feature these cartoons on their websites. A little late to the party perhaps. But I promise not to be a wallflower.
They weren’t expecting a huge crowd in downtown Lebanon yesterday to mark the one year anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The demonstration organizers averred that they would have been pleased if 50,000 Lebanese citizens had marched for democracy and justice - justice for the perpetrators of the assassination who to this day are walking free, beyond the reach of the Lebanese courts or any international tribunal. This was one of the reasons given by the March 14 Forces who organized the demonstration as to why the turnout would probably be so disappointing.
As it played out, nearly 1 million Lebanese poured into Martyr’s Square to both remember the beloved former Prime Minister and show their support for democracy, independence, and bringing Hariri’s killers to justice.
It was spectacular proof that the forces for democratic change who pulled off the astonishing feat of forging a broad based coalition that swept to victory in the Parliamentary elections last summer still have a deep wellspring of support among the people of this tragic, divided land.
But the demonstration also highlighted the monumental problems still facing the country’s leaders as they seek to overcome decades of bloodshed, hate, and suspicion and achieve stable, democratic government free from foreign influence.
Not all of Lebanon was represented at the demonstration in Martyr’s Square. The forces of Hizballah, the Amal Militia, and Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement held their own, separate remembrances honoring Hariri. And herein lie the seeds of Lebanon’s weakness as well as the potential for disaster. Despite all the uplifting rhetoric, Lebanon is still a country divided not just by religion but also by forces with dual loyalties to Beirut and Damascus. It is a country where many if not most of its citizens sees itself at war with the State of Israel. And it is a country where the very idea of nationhood is tied up in a complex web of expectations and dreams that vary from group to group, region to region, and sect to sect.
The number one problem facing Lebanon today is the same problem it has faced for more than a quarter century; the pervasive and pernicious influence of Syria on the everyday affairs of the nation. Like a parasite that feeds off its host, Syria has invaded the nervous system of Lebanon and has spread its tentacles into every corner of society. Simply getting rid of the Syrian army and the outward accoutrements of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s secret police did not solve the problem. Like removing a leech from the body and not removing the head, Syria’s influence on the politics, the economy, and the security services of Lebanon remains to poison the blood and sicken the host.
There are no easy solutions to the problem of Syrian influence. That’s because groups like Hizballah, despite protestations to the contrary by their leader Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, rely on Syria for weapons and as a conduit for aid from their allies in Tehran. On this day honoring the slain former Prime Minister, Nasrallah highlighted what he says Hariri told him; that “Lebanon cannot be ruled from Damascus nor can it be ruled against Damascus.” He further recalled that Hariri had believed that Lebanon was in a state of war with Israel, regardless of whether actual clashes took place.
Those clashes are in fact taking place with Israel as “The Resistance” (as Hizballah insists on calling itself) continues to launch attacks in the disputed Shebaa Farms region. Israel still patrols the Farms, using it as a buffer region to keep the terrorists from killing innocent civilians. It is a major bone of contention between Lebanon and Israel and as long as Hizballah’s 10,000 militiamen are armed with rockets, Israel will refuse to give it up.
In this vicious circle of violence, Hizballah uses Israel’s presence on Lebanese territory as an excuse to keep its weapons despite a UN Resolution (1559) calling for the group to disarm. Recently, the issue of Hizballah’s weapons became a domestic political football as the terrorist group, along with their religious allies, boycotted Lebanese cabinet meetings, demanding that instead of being called a “militia” which would have necessitated their disarmament, they be referred to as “The Resistance.”
For nearly three months, the cabinet was crippled as crucial business had to be deferred. Finally, earlier this month, a compromise was brokered by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and the Shiite parties returned to the table. But the lesson was clear; Hizballah must be reckoned with as a political force as well as a military one. The hard fact is that Hizballah has 26 members who have been elected to parliament. And their influence over large swaths of the country is undeniable. How to separate Hizballah from their weapons without tearing the country apart will be the number one challenge facing the government of Lebanon for the foreseeable future.
For within that issue lies so many of Lebanon’s internal problems. Secularization versus Islamic law. War or peace with Israel. Politics practiced with guns or words. And unity versus a kind of tribalism that would guarantee a weak, divided Lebanon constantly being pulled this way or that by its more powerful neighbors in Damascus and Tel Aviv.
As far as unity is concerned, Hizballah isn’t the only headache facing the country’s political leaders. There is also the out sized personality and political wild card represented by the Free Patriotic Movement’s Michel Aoun.
A former Prime Minister, the charismatic Aoun recently returned from exile and has stirred up a witches brew of political trouble. Initially participating in the coalition of anti-Syrian parties that kicked Assad’s army out of the country, he left the coalition in a huff when it became apparent he would not play a leading role. In what has become a hallmark of his career, he then flipped and joined pro-Syrian parties in a coalition during the round of elections last summer. He has since been angling for the Presidency, campaigning to replace what most observers agree is a Syrian puppet Emil Lahoud in that office.
The real problem is the Maronite Auon’s unnatural alliance with the Shiites in Hizballah. If Aoun had agreed to his reduced role in the March 14 Forces, Hizballah may have been isolated and been forced to accede to both UN Resolutions and a reduced role in politics. As it is, Aoun’s personal ambition for the Presidency has complicated matters enormously and it remains to be seen even if he is named President, whether he will be able to unite the factions and strengthen the country.
Another political problem is the coalition itself. It is under stress from all sides as the peace brokered prior to last summer’s elections is fraying around the edges. There simply is no dominant personality for all sides to rally around and look to for leadership. Rafiq Hariri’s son Saad could emerge as that leader except that President Assad of Syria realizes that also. Hariri’s security in Lebanon has become so problematic that for the last six months he has lived in self-imposed exile.
In a stirring speech at the demonstration yesterday, the young Hariri issued a clear call for unity:
We meet here today in March 14 square, there are no Muslims and there are no Christians, there are only Lebanese screaming ‘Lebanon first.” There is no place amongst us for criminals … there is no place among us for the symbols of the security apparatus.”
One of those symbols was the target of the crowd’s wrath yesterday; President Emil Lahoud. It is widely believed that Lahoud had a hand in the assassination of the elder Hariri as well as other high profile killings that occurred last summer including a popular anti-Syrian journalist. In fact, the UN Commission set up to investigate the Hariri assassination and headed up by prosecutor Detlev Mehlis discovered calls made by a known conspirator in the assassination to Lahoud’s office both immediately before and after the killing. But Lahoud is a powerful politician with his own base of support. His refusal to resign continues to complicate the politics of reconciliation that many observers believe is vitally necessary if Lebanon is to survive and prosper.
Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri has called for a Commission of National Dialog which will bring together all segments of Lebanese society in an effort to come to grips with the numerous problems that weigh so heavily on the future of this divided land. Perhaps the energy and hope contained in the one million beating hearts who demonstrated in the square yesterday will be enough to motivate Lebanon’s leaders to take advantage of that opportunity for dialog and redouble their efforts to achieve unity.
It’s clear that the people haven’t given up hope. It remains to be seen whether the country’s leaders can rise above their differences - both petty and pervasive - in order to fulfill the dream of a Lebanon at peace with itself and the world.
Not content with demanding that the free nations of the world outlaw the caricaturing of the prophet Mohamed, the “moderate” Muslim group Organization of Islamic Council (OIC) is now trying to piggyback their grievances on the bodies of 3,000 dead Americans.
They are trying to tell us that the Cartoon Controversy is the Muslim world’s 9/11:
The publication of cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Mohamed has had the effect of the September 11 attacks on the Islamic world, argued Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Conference.
Muslims are offended by the cartoons, Mr. Ihsanoglu told High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union (EU) Javier Solana; currently on tour in the Middle East.
“It is unfortunate that the Islamic world took the satirical drawings as a different version of the September 11 attacks against them,” said Mr. Ihsanoglu. “I hope,” he added, “the EU will adopt a new ruling to fight against Islamophobia.”
This is the same group that wants the United Nations to pass a resolution outlawing “contempt” for religions and impose sanctions on countries and institutions that don’t toe their line against free speech:
The Muslim world’s two main political bodies say they are seeking a UN resolution, backed by possible sanctions, to protect religions after the publication in Scandinavia of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of Organisation of the Islamic Conference, said in Cairo on Sunday that the international body would “ask the UN general assembly to pass a resolution banning attacks on religious beliefsâ€.
The deputy secretary-general of the Arab League, Ahmed Ben Helli, confirmed that contacts were under way for such a proposal to be made to the UN.
“Consultations are currently taking place at the highest level between Arab countries and the OIC to ask the UN to adopt a binding resolution banning contempt of religious beliefs and providing for sanctions to be imposed on contravening countries or institutions.
I don’t know about you but I’m getting sick and tired of other nations trying to tell me that this or that happening to them is somehow to be equated with the most brutal and deadly terrorist attack in history.
We’ve had Spain’s 9/11 (which was also supposed to be Europe’s 9/11), Great Britain’s 9/11, Indonesia’s 9/11 to name a few. We’ve also had 9/11 used as a metaphor for any number of idiotic issues with the Cartoon Brouhaha only the latest. It makes me wonder if the people trying to piggyback their pet issues and agendas on the ghost of 9/11 ever wonder how totally ridiculous they look.
The OIC wasn’t content with comparing their “plight” to 9/11; they had to throw in references to the Holocaust also, a curious idea since so many of them are Holocaust deniers:
“In Europe unfortunately Muslims have taken the place of Jews during World War II. There is a need for a UN legislation and clarification of existing conventions,†he said.
Ihsanoglu asked for adopting a code of conduct for the European media. “The code of conduct should take into account the sensitivities of the Muslims and defamation in any form or manifestation and the core beliefs of the religions including mocking and criticizing prophets, and it should be considered an ethical offense in the European media code,†he said.
(HT: LGF)
Who do we have to thank for this kind of nonsense? The left in Europe and America of course. The kind of moral relativism that can equate the horrors of Holocaust atrocities with the extinction of snail darters can easily morph into Muslims saying that the mocking of their prophet can equal the death of 6 million human beings. After all, it’s how it makes them “feel” that matters.
I think we should call for a moratorium on the use of both 9/11 and the Holocaust to describe anything but events that are realistically similar in both numbers and impact on history. Don’t hold your breath, though. The world’s “victims” have the media playbook of the left down cold and can manipulate their emotions as easily as a child can be manipulated by fairy tales.
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