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hile the liberal Barack Obama appears to continue to wrestle with his inner demons, struggling to find the right thing to say to confront Tehran’s totalitarians, conservative world leaders don’t seem to find it all that hard to say the right thing.  Here’s Germany’s conservative Angela Merkel, via Voice of America:

Human rights and citizens’ rights are inseparable, and that is why Germany stands behind the people, and peaceful demonstrations in Iran, who want to make use of their freedom of speech and who want to gather peacefully. I, therefore, demand that Iran’s leaders allow peaceful demonstrations, allow free reporting of events, stop the use of violence against demonstrators and free imprisoned people.

It’s too bad the real voice of America, Barack Obama, can’t state it so clearly. French president Nicolas Sarkozy also knows how to string some good words together:

The extent of the fraud is proportional to the violent reaction.  It is a tragedy, but it is not negative to have a real-opinion movement that tries to break its chains.  If Ahmadinejad has really made progress since the last election and if he really represents two thirds of the electorate… why has this violence erupted?

Oh sure, talk like that gets the Tehraniacs’ turbans in a knot:

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki denounced Western criticism as “treacherous” and “unjust,” and accused foreign governments of fomenting unrest in his country.

Yeah, that’s right.  We praised the election results before the ballots were counted. We saw to it that more votes were cast than there are potential voters. We saw to it that Ahmadinejad prevailed in the hometowns of his opponents, towns he had never even visited.

We’d better shut up or they might say bad things about us. Or, perhaps we could just respond ot ridiculous Iranian propaganda the way Sarkozy responded:

We don’t want to give the impression that foreigners … are getting involved in the elections in Iran … but when you have to condemn, you condemn.”

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“It’s a sad evening for social democracy in Europe. We are particularly disappointed, [it is] a bitter evening for us.” Martin Schultz, European Socialist

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enter-right parties showed strongly in elections across Europe over the weekend, winning in England, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal and Poland, as more hard-right parties gained seats in Britain, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Slovakia and Hungary.  Baring the brunt of European frustration with immigration and economic policies, leftist and socialist parties took a beating.

In an economic downturn, the Europeans are making the right choices, voting for parties that promise to cut government expenses, tighten immigration policies and trim social welfare.  Here in America, we’re stuck with a president who is plunging in the opposite direction, promising more than 600,000 taxpayer- or debt-funded jobs, fast-tracking healthcare “reform,” and buying huge stakes in our industrial and economic sectors.

It’s a crazy world.  Just a year ago, we lampooned the Left for wanting to be like Europe.  Now American conservatives can only look enviously across the pond and shake their heads enviously.

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uropeans must be a happy bunch this morning because a team of Russian and American “experts” have determined that their continent needs no missile shield, and those apocalyptic Iranians and their full-bore nuclear development programs pose no risk to Europeans from Budapest to Bath.

The experts’ first finding, reported by WaPo is that the planned defense won’t be effective against the type of missiles the Iranians are likely to use. The second: It’ll be more than five years before the Iranians would be read to nuke Europe.  Two questions:  How long will it take to install the missile defense.  And why not hire some other experts to use those five years to make the system effective against the kind of missiles the Iranians would use.

The experts then analyzed the Iranians’ crappy missiles, derived from crappy North Korean knock-offs of seriously outdated Russian sub-launched missiles, and conclude it would take six to eight years for the Iranians to get a launchable bomb and put it on a missile capable of hitting a European city.  So no missile defense is needed, natch!  Especially since the experts don’t think any U.S. system could knock out an Iranian – North Korean – Russian missile dating from the 1950s.

But the entire discussion is moot because of the experts’ final point: that the Iranians won’t nuke Europe anyway because it will ensure their self-destruction.  How odd.  Saner nations than Iran - the US and Russia – pursued or feared missile defense systems, even though the doctrine of mutually assured destruction was firmly in place between them, so why should the Europeans not have an insurance policy against Iranian lunacy?

I don’t think the Iranians are likely to try to hit Europe with a missile because so many other scenarios make more sense, not the least of which is simply providing a nuclear umbrella for its operatives in the Middle East.  But if I were a European, I’d be more comfortable staking my future on a real missile defense than the opinions of experts.

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laina Cohen has labored long and hard for England’s leftist Labour party, slogging the precincts, pimping the candidates, collecting the cash.  So she felt it was her turn to head up an inner-city ward and submitted her application.

It came back stamped “Too white and too Jewish.”  Here’s the story:

Elaina Cohen claims that Labour councillor Mahmood Hussain said he would not support her application for an inner-city ward because ‘my Muslim members don’t want you because you are Jewish’.

Mrs Cohen, 50, has made an official complaint about the alleged remarks made by Mr Hussain, a Muslim and former lord mayor of Birmingham.

She said: ‘I am shocked and upset that a member of the Labour Party in this day and age could even think something like that, let alone say it.

‘People should not be allowed to make racist comments like that. If someone in the party feels I cannot represent them because of my colour or religion, that’s ridiculous.” (Daily Mail)

Cohen argued that she had worked hard for Birmingham’s Muslim community and had even been on official visits to Pakistan as part of her Labour labors – but, really, who’s she kidding with that “ridiculous” line.  Britain’s Labour party has encouraged massive immigration of Muslims in an effort to secure long-term dominance in local government and Parliament and has kowtowed to their every whim.  You want British public toilets to not face Mecca? Sure! You want police dogs to wear booties when searching your houses? Sure! You want us to ban our own flag because it offends you?  Why the heck not? You want welfare for your mulitple wives even though polygamy is illegal in England? Why didn’t you ask sooner!

You want Jews sent to extermination camps?

Hussssssain has denied making the comments. But then we know the Qur’an says it’s fine and dandy to lie to infidels in order to further the jihad, and, as it happens, Cohen had a witness:

Lorraine Briscoe, who runs a local community association, was sitting next to Mrs Cohen when the conversation took place on speakerphone last Tuesday.

‘I was disgusted that a councillor could make comments like that in 2009,’ she said.

‘He told her, “They will not vote for someone who is white and Jewish. My Muslim members don’t want you because you are Jewish”.

‘Elaina then asked him if he had talked to his Muslim members about it and he said, “I don’t want to talk about it with you” and hung up. 

Two days after the incident, Cohen’s application to run was summarily rejected.  She has filed an official complaint with, if you’ll excuse the term, Labour’s management.  Get ready for liberal antisemitism, round two.

Hat-tip: Mere Rhetoric

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‘m working on a political thriller in which the Chinese are up to no good. The scheme I’ve created for them to carry out is pretty imaginative and nefarious, but I just might have to reconsider it, because what they’re doing in the real world is much, much worse, according to the WSJ:

WASHINGTON — Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven’t sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

“The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid,” said a senior intelligence official. “So have the Russians.”

Power companies were unaware their systems had been breeched; U.S. intelligence agencies discovered Chinese and Russian footprints in what should be our most secure non-governmental computer networks. They found intrusions across the systems, and the frequency of penetrations and probings is increasing in frequency and scope, as water and sewage infrastructure are being hit, too.

Consider the latter for just a moment. Sewage treatment plants utilize a carefully balanced microbial process to break down sewage, so an attack on a plant that knocks off the balance and kills the microbes will eliminate the plant’s ability to clean sewage for several days, until balance can be achieved again. Until then, there’s no place to store millions of gallons of wastewater, so it must pass through the plant without treatment.

Plants like these line our rivers, and without them, water in the downstream city would become polluted and undrinkable. Knock out a strategic series of plants along a major river like the Ohio, and you could cause disease outbreaks and mass migrations from a string of major cities.

And that’s the tougher of these three scenarios; computer-spawned disasters in the power or water systems would be swifter, and it’s much easier to imagine the catostrophic results. Add to that the computer systems that run pipelines and industrial facilities and everything starts to snowball to the point when we’ll need a batallion of Jack Bauers.

The Bush admin spent $17 billion in secret funds to strengthen the defenses of government computer systems, and the Obama admin is currently reviewing this program and considering expanding it to include infrastructure-related systems. This is one area where a little government intrusion into the private sector is necessary – the utilities apparently haven’t gotten their act together – and normally should be encouraged, but as is their wont, Dems are not letting any crisis go underutilized:

Last week, Senate Democrats introduced a proposal that would require all critical infrastructure companies to meet new cybersecurity standards and grant the president emergency powers over control of the grid systems and other infrastructure.

I’m with you up to that pivotal “and.” Let’s not be granting this president any more authority to take control of the private sector than we absolutely must. I fear this is a debate that will occur without much public awareness, and that it will end with Obama having the authority to expand federal control over life’s essentials – water and power.

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he sheer, uncomprehendable horror of Islamic female apartheit through female genital mutilation (FGM), and the unforgivable fact that Western Civilization is allowing it due to uncontrolled liberalism, is downplayed in this Times (UK) article, which starts:

The [National Health Service] is to advertise free operations to reverse female circumcisions, with experts warning that each year more than 500 British girls have their genitals mutilated.

Despite having been outlawed in 1985, female circumcision is still practised in British African communities, in some cases on girls as young as 5. Police have been unable to bring a single prosecution even though they suspect that community elders are being flown from the Horn of Africa to carry out the procedures.

African?  As in primitive religions forgotten to the rest of the world? No, Aftrican as in Islamic, following the laws of the Prophet, shielded by the crushing multi-culturalism of England.  Indeed, the words “Muslim” or “Islam” do not appear at all in the article, which says the mutilations are carried out for “various reasons, such as religious and cultural traditions.”

This is reporting?  This is giving the people the facts they need to be intelligent citizens? Disgusting.

Let’s get real about Islamic mutilation of girls.  The lucky ones may just have their clitorus hacked out, condemning most of them to a life without sexual love, reducing them to little more than sex slaves.  The less fortunate lose their outer and inner labia in addition to their clitorus, and are left disfigured and humiliated in their roles as sex slaves.  The term for this particularly brutal form of FGM is tahur—which means “cleansing” or “purification.”

 According to Frontline, more than 130 million women are living today with the results of this barbarism, and more than two million girls – 5,000 every day – are assaulted by it each year. The practice, which is frequently carried out with a piece of broken glass, frequently results in death, or in lives full of chronic pain and infection.  “Approximately 75 percent of women cannot achieve orgasm without clitoral stimulation,” the article continues, “thus, the possibility of sexual satisfaction has been obliterated for millions of women in the Muslim world.”

Frontline’s article is much more forthright than the incoherant, PC gibberish published in the Times, making it clear that it is not Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist girls who are being mutilated:

The Muslim communities who practise FGM will not easily abandon their barbarity. The Egyptian government, for example, banned FGM in 1996, but an Egyptian court overturned the ban in July 1997. The problem is that the clitoris mutilators point to traditional teachings that sanction FGM. Islamic tradition, for instance, records the Prophet Muhammad emphasizing that circumcising girls is “a preservation of honor for women.” A legal manual of the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence, ‘Umdat al-Salik, which is endorsed by Al-Azhar University of Cairo — the oldest and most prestigious university in the Islamic world — states that circumcision is obligatory for both boys and girls.

To borrow the take-away line from Frontlines, the British government seems to think that protecting little girls’ genitals is less important nowadays than protecting itself from the charge of being Islamophobic.  How pathetic, and how appalling that the once-proud British people are allowing this horror to continue on their shores – you’d think this might cause the people to break through the phony barrier of “Islamophobia” and put an end to Islam’s uncivilized, barbaric practices, like FGM and jihad.

hat-tip: What Bubba Knows

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ould Russia be taking Hillary up on her “Reset” (not “overcharge”) invitation?  Are they resetting glasnost and peristoika for the comfy familiarity of the cold war?  What do you read into this AP report?

A Russian Air Force chief said Saturday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered an island as a temporary base for strategic Russian bombers, the Interfax news agency reported.

The chief of staff of Russia’s long range aviation, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, also said Cuba could be used to base the aircraft, Interfax reported. …

Zhikharev said Chavez had offered “a whole island with an airdrome, which we can use as a temporary base for strategic bombers,” the agency reported. “If there is a corresponding political decision, then the use of the island … by the Russian Air Force is possible.”

Interfax reported he said earlier that Cuba has air bases with four or five runways long enough for the huge bombers and could be used to host the long-range planes. …

Independent military analyst Alexander Golts said from a strategic point of view there was nothing for Russia to gain from basing long-range craft within relatively short range of U.S. shores. “It has no military sense. The bombers don’t need any base. This is just a retaliatory gesture,” Golts said, saying Russia wanted to hit back after U.S. ships patrolled Black Sea waters.

At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey sees it as possibly that foreign policy challenge Joe Biden predicted his boss would get in the admin’s first six months:

It took John Kennedy more than a year to precipitate a military standoff with the Soviet Union over Cuba in the 1962 missile crisis.  It’s taken the Obama Amateur Hour less than two months.

James Joyner of the Atlantic Council is dismissive:

I’m sure Golts’ assessment is right here.  The Soviets did not have permanent bases in the area during the Cold War, so the strategic rationale for doing so now is hard to fathom.  Most likely, this is just a selective leak to the press to tweak the Obama administration.  

I tend to stand closer to Joyner here.  The Russians tried this once before when America had a young president who lacked deep experience, and they ended up giving JFK a leg up on foreign policy.  Unless the Russian memory fades to black around 1963, they will see the high-probability endgame of accepting Chavez’s invitation as the Bear shuffling back to the Mother Country, tail between its legs.

There are two other scenarios:  They fly in a TU-95 or two for a “goodwill” visit just to test the Obama response, which, if we can tell much from his first 50 days, will be late, weak and confused – giving Putin a victory as his planes wing home.

Alternatively, it’s the New World Order, with Obama and Putin just playing with our heads.

Dang, I’m missing W.

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convoy led by the maverick MP George Galloway carrying supplies for Gaza has been attacked in Egypt, apparently injuring several people travelling in his party.

The convoy, carrying aid worth £1 million, was pelted with stones and vandalised with anti-Hamas slogans after it stopped overnight in El-Arish, a small town around 28 miles from the Rafah border crossing with Gaza.  (Times of London)

An aide to Galloway called the attack “an absolute disgrace,” apparently not having any idea how “absolute” is defined in the English language.  I’d argue with “disgrace,” too, but even if you think it’s not a good idea to throw stones at England’s looniest MP, the most sold-out to the jihadists politician in the West, it would still be easy for you to see why the attack was not absolutely disgraceful.

After all, Galloway was in Egypt and just a bit before he had said this of Egypt and its leader:

“There are many governments responsible for this great crime in Palestine, but the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak is jointly responsible for the murder of every Palestinian who has died in these last two years. 

“When he [Mubarak] was embracing Livni [the Israeli Foreign Minister] as the bombs were falling, when he locked the border at Rafah, he became an international criminal and an outlaw of the Arab world.

“So I call, in conclusion, on the great people of Egypt, on the heroic armed forces of Egypt, and the heroic army of Egypt of 1973, to rise up and sweep away this tyrant Mubarak.

“To rise up, to rise up, and to demolish the border at Rafah and let the people go free.”

That could make him just a bit unpopular in some places.  Like Egypt.

And that bit about demolishing the border and letting Palestinians – Palestinians! – have free access to your country didn’t go over too well, either. For all Galloway fawns to the Arabs, he apparently hasn’t learned that Arab states are not the least bit keen on having large populations of Palestinians, with their victimhood and violence, living in their territory.

And then there was this:

THREE Islamist terror suspects who were arrested in northwest England on Friday night planned to leave the country under the cover of a humanitarian convoy to Gaza led by George Galloway, the maverick MP, senior police sources said. THREE Islamist terror suspects who were arrested in northwest England on Friday night planned to leave the country under the cover of a humanitarian convoy to Gaza led by George Galloway, the maverick MP, senior police sources said.

Big stones, sharp stones for Mr. Galloway, then!

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n a rare fit of clarity, Britain banned Omar Bakri from returning to Britain in 2005, after he fled the country following the 7/7 subway attacks that ended the lives of 52 British citizens. It seemed OK with the Brits that Bakri praised Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks, but when he blamed the the British government and the British people for 7/7, the bugger’s welcome mat was pulled.

Now befouling Lebanon with his hateful existence, Bakri hasn’t given up on Britain.  From the Telegraph:

Omar Bakri, the radical cleric banned from Britain, has addressed a conference at a primary school in London in which he called for the country to become an Islamic state.

Dozens of Muslims attended the rally at Sudbury Primary School in Harrow, north London, to hear Bakri preach for 40 minutes over the telephone from his exiled home in Lebanon. …

Bakri told his followers: “The existence of the Islamic state is a necessity for justice to be established, a necessity for the people in order to keep away from personal desire and greed.

“I believe the way forward is Islam. It is time to go back to basics. I believe Islam is the future.”

Now perhaps its time for Britain to boot the organizer of this little fete out as well.  that would be Anjem Choudary, Bakri’s Britain-resident aide, who was identified by the Telegraph as the “former” head of the extremist group Al Muhajiroun.  IslamWatch tells us to watch out for words like “former” …

Al-Muhajiroun was officially disbanded in October 2004, but it has continued under other names. Right from its start, the group had intentions to be “international”. In this, it has succeeded. It established a foothold in the United States, and had a base in Pakistan. Even though the parent group has been abolished, its members continue to promote its message of jihad both in Britain and North America.

… and goes on to describe the groups’ activities including one member who trained to be a 9/11 hijacker, another who worked to set up a “terror training camp” in Washington, another admitted providing night-vision goggles, waterproof clothing and money to a senior Al Qaeda official who was based in South Waziristan, another was arrested following the finding of more than 1,300 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in London, and on, and on.

It’s not enough to kick them out of your country.  It’s certainly a bad idea to set them free from Guantanamo.  Their hatred is deep and unabated.  Only death silences them.

Hat-tip:  Weasel Zippers

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The Greens Go Very, Very Red

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just logged onto Terra Daily, a Greenie/Warmie hysteria site that books itself as “Earth News, Earth Science, Energy Technology, Environment News.” I often look at Terra while writing Sunday Scan because it’s so amazingly gloomy – all about environmental disasters and (related, they claim)  higher CO2. But today it reads like the People’s Daily. Have the Chinese bought the environmental movement lock, stock and barrel?

The lead story, China says Somali mission signals no change in military policy, is a statement from the Chinese military saying, in effect, “Don’t worry just because we have ships engaged off the coast of Somalia. We’re still just a passive little defensive navy.”  And this has what, exactly, to do with the environment?

The second lead is China pledges more support for impoverished Malawi, noting that last year Malawi switched its backing from Taipei to Beijing. The green connection seems to be missing here.  That’s followed by, under the heading “Farm News,” China couple first to take milk pay-out: State media, and under “Sino Daily,” China awash with fake 100 yuan notes. Again, does anyone see green here instead of red?

There are two more stories out of China before we finally get to the typical Terra Daily fare of surging CO2 levels and death tolls from floods (nothing to be seen about the various deep cold snaps, though).  Nothing on the site explains this transformation since I last looked at it last Sunday. It’s all presented totally matter of factly, as this news is the news that appeals to the Gaian deep greeners.

Maybe it does.  Maybe they’re finally letting their true colors show.  Or possibly, Terra Daily was flailing, unable to find enough readers to keep the owners in their metro-yuppie-hipness, so they sold out to the Chinese.  If so, it’s very heavy-handed, which is what we’d expect.  And if so, it won’t stop with little ol’ Terra Daily.  From sea to shining sea, major newspapers are looking for buyers.

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