March 31, 2004

PARIS IN THE SPRING

Anyone old enough to remember the 1930s or anyone who knows anything about twentieth-century history (probably the same people, given what’s become of education in this country) must have felt the chill of déjà vu as Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” opened to record-breaking crowds and nearly unprecedented box-office receipts in theaters across the country.

But nothing inspires a feeling that we’ve been here, seen this before, like the goings-on in la belle France, cradle of the Enlightenment, origin of the Rights of Man, land of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Also the best friend Nazi Germany had in all of occupied Europe, the only country to which Hitler did not send a Gauleiter to ensure that his anti-Semitic policies were carried out effectively. He didn’t need to. The French did it all for him, willingly, even enthusiastically.

Frenchmen were still alive in the 1940s who remembered Dreyfus—and who thought his pardon had been a mistake. And although de Gaulle managed to perpetuate the myth after the war that France had been conquered, had resisted, and had finally liberated itself, it gradually became clear with the revelations of the years that followed, that au contraire, France had cut a deal with the Germans to avoid fighting, that there had been little real resistance until it was clear the Allies were going to win (and even then the resistance was mostly British-inspired and British-led), and that France had been liberated by the Allies, chiefly those Americans so scorned by the French today.

Not until some thirty years after war’s end did scholars like Robert O. Paxton of Columbia University reveal the role the French themselves had played in the Holocaust, registering their citizens of Jewish origin, rounding them up, throwing them into internment camps, and packing them onto the trains which transported them to “the east.” Some seventy-five thousand of them made the one-way journey.

If denial and shame may explain the French contempt for the U.S. and its leaders, how to explain the nation’s lingering anti-Semitism? The legacy of a cleric-dominated culture? The presence of millions of Muslim immigrants? Self-justification for past actions?

Whatever the cause, the effect remains. The New York Times reports (“Arts Briefing, Tuesday, March 30, p. E2) that a French court has rejected a petition by three French Jews to ban distribution of Gibson’s film in France on the grounds that “there is so much violent anti-Semitism in Europe that we cannot let this happen.”

The French court felt otherwise, ruling that “the film in question, which is a very realistic adaptation of the final hours of Christ’s life, cannot be considered an incitement to hatred and violence against Jews or an affront to their dignity and security.”

That’s pretty much what the authorities said about the exhibit in Paris in 1941 entitled “Le Juif et la France.” Towering over the exhibition was a caricature of a grasping hook-nosed Jew, not too different from Gibson’s high priest. Among other edifying sights inside the Palais Berlitz was a huge sculpture of “the Jewish nose.” Parisians who crowded the exhibit probably felt it couldn’t be considered “an incitement to hatred and violence against Jews,” certainly not “an affront to their dignity and security.”

The more things change…

Posted by Rita Kramer, whose recent novel, “When Morning Comes,” is set in occupied Paris during World War II. For details click here.

March 30, 2004

A MESSENGER BRINGS THE BAD NEWS ABOUT ISLAM

Horsefeathers was out in full force last evening to attend a book-launching party for Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch. The party was hosted by the great-hearted and generous patriot, Ruth King, and was on behalf of “Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the World.”

Spencer has been studying Islamic history, culture, and politics for more than twenty-five years and clearly knows his onions. His message was not a happy one. He feels that those in charge misunderstand the dangers of the religion of Islam and he believes that our enemies are in a religious war against us rather than a secular war.

Contrary to the views of American foreign policy makers, he reminds us that all Muslims are commanded by their religion to kill or convert all infidels, and those Muslims who are religious moderates ignore these righteous commandments. There are not two Islams—a moderate one practiced by some Muslims, and a militant one practiced by radical terrorists—there is only one Islam, dominated by a theology of violence and religious cleansing. There has never been a repudiation of these principles and no Luther has emerged in the fourteen hundred years since Mohammed to reform or reshape Islam for modern times and modern Muslims. If a Muslim today wishes to live peacefully in a non-Muslim state he must become unfaithful to an integral part of his religion—the call to Jihad.

Spencer reminds us also that there is no organized church hierarchy—a Pope or College of Cardinals to guide the faithful as to what the true faith is. There is only a network of imams, and each is a law unto himself. Some imams will preach jihad and others may not and you will not know which is which until, one day, one of his followers blows you and your infidel friends up.

For the full story read the book.

FROM THE LAND OF APPEASERS: A CRI DE COEUR

Terror and tolerance
By Jean-Christophe Mounicq

The morning of Jan. 29, upon hearing about the attack on a bus in Jerusalem, I did not experience the expected emotion. It seemed such a "normal" thing, and I have not enough tears to shed for people I do not know.

The next day, on Jan. 30, I read an article about one of the victims — Avraham Belhassen, 26 years old, a young father — and realized that I could tolerate no more. I can no longer tolerate terrorist folly, Islamist hatred, the passivity of Muslims, the blindness of the West.

Following the attacks in Madrid, this feeling struck me again. The reaction of the Spanish people, cringing in fear before the Islamist claim of responsibility, bothered me even more. I can no longer tolerate such cowardly Munich-like behavior that leads inevitably to dishonor and war.

The reaction of the European media and political class to the elimination of Sheikh Yassin — the master of hate and terrorism, and one who had called for the murder of Jews — pushed me over the edge. I can no longer tolerate descriptions of the monster responsible for hundreds of deaths and thousands of wounded as a "spiritual leader," a poor "paralytic in a wheelchair." I can no longer tolerate murderous, barbaric Islamist hatred.

I can no longer tolerate the electoral victories of Islamists in Algeria, Turkey or France. I can no longer tolerate the indifference of Muslim leaders and the majority of Muslims to the suffering of non-Muslims. I can no longer tolerate their affected statements or their perpetual self-victimization.

I can no longer tolerate the double game of Yasser Arafat, the Saudi princes or Pakistani leaders. I can no longer tolerate watching Muslims dance with joy, in the Palestinian territories or in Paris, following attacks on the World Trade Center or an Israeli bus. I can no longer tolerate their anti-Semitism, anti-Christianism, anti-Buddhism or anti-Hinduism.

I can no longer tolerate those who hate liberty but take every advantage of it. I can no longer tolerate Islamist lack of respect for secularism and equality, between men and women, Muslims and others. I can no longer tolerate their lack of respect for the cultures of the very countries that shelter them. I can no longer tolerate the multiplication of veils on women in the streets of Paris.

I can no longer tolerate attacks on French officials, abusive complaints against the police, terrorism against judges, the ban against teaching about the Holocaust in schools, or the brutalization of male doctors who treat Muslim women in hospitals. I can no longer tolerate burning cars in Strasbourg and synagogues in Bondi. I can no longer tolerate catcalls when the Marseillaise is played during games at the Stadium of France. I can no longer tolerate the cries of "death to Jews" in their demonstrations or "death to Christians" written on walls.

I can no longer tolerate concealing the massacres of Christians and Jews in Islamic countries, Copts in the Middle East, of one-and-a-half million Orthodox Armenians in Turkey at the beginning of the last century, as well as a million-and-a-half Christian Sudanese at its end. I can no longer tolerate Muslim ethnic cleansing in Kosovo or Palestine. I can no longer tolerate Islamist totalitarianism.

I can no longer tolerate the relativism and masochism of a West incapable of recalling its own history other than to denounce it. I can no longer tolerate comparing the Crusades to jihad, when the Crusades were nothing but a parenthesis in the history of Christianity while jihad is an integral part of Islam.

I can no longer tolerate the cowardice, weakness and mediocrity of the majority of Western leaders, or the unwillingness of Westerners to affirm their own values and the superiority of liberty and democracy over all other principles and systems. I can no longer tolerate the inability of Europe to recall its Judeo-Christian heritage.

I can no longer tolerate taxes that the European Union transforms into subsidies for the Palestinian Authority or that France transforms into arms for Saddam Hussein. I can no longer tolerate paying the maternity bills for women ready to sacrifice their infants as suicide bombers or for teaching children hatred on the West Bank.

I'm going to pray in the memory of Avraham, pray that his death and those of so many others might finally open the eyes of the cowards in the West who refuse to face the truth. I'm going to pray for Westerners to understand that the war on terrorism is in reality a war against Islamism, and that Islamism is gaining ground among Muslims.

I'm going to pray that moderate Muslims might organize demonstrations against the terrorists just as Corsicans and Basques have demonstrated against their own terrorists. Pray that Islam, which is entering its nuclear era, might become neither conqueror nor warrior, but rather adapt to modernity before it is too late.

Jean-Christophe Mounicq is a French writer specializing in economics, world politics and the French political scene. His book "Understanding World War IV" will be published later this year.

March 28, 2004

BORN GAY: THE MYTH THAT WILL NOT DIE

BORN GAY: THE MYTH THAT WILL NOT DIE

The day before yesterday the San Francisco Chronicle website announced that “Kerry says that people are born gay….” The article went on to explain that an interview with Kerry, to be broadcast soon on MTV, would express Kerry’s views on gays and their issues: gay marriage and gays in the military among other things.

The myth that gays are born that way is the basis of almost every social issue that gays lobby about. If gays can get you to believe that society discriminates against them as though they were “gender niggers,” and treats them as though they were second class citizens, as though sexual orientation is the same as skin color, then the same moral arguments hold for gays as they held for blacks in their struggle to first class citizenship and beyond.

The myth, like the monk Rasputin, is very hard to kill—poison it, stab it, shoot it—and it will not die. How did this myth come about and what perpetuates it?

First of all, it grows out of the same soil that all personal myth comes from—each person’s imperative emotional needs. By the time each of us reaches maturity, we have constructed a kind of autobiography about ourselves, our parents, our relatives and our early experiences to “explain” who we are and why we are the way we are. These autobiographies are not altogether true history, but a weaving of reality and fantasy mixed up so that each of us becomes the protagonist-hero of our personal myth. Each of us usually creates a likely story that helps us ward off our greatest fears, guilt and depressed feelings.

And homosexuals are no different from heterosexuals in this respect. Many of them create a personal myth that makes them feel that they were “born that way.” None of us, of course, can reach back to our earliest days of life and remember what we were like. Nor are our parents much help in this regard because they too recreate the history of their parenting to put the best face on it. So all personal testimonies of gays that they were “born that way” should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

All of this is confirmed in the many case histories of children with Gender Identity Disorders—kids who have no biological defect of any sort and who develop a profound hatred for their own gender because of some psychological trauma. These kids are heart-breakingly unhappy with themselves to the degree that they may develop the delusion that they are members of the opposite sex. Eventually, after many years, they give up the wish to be of the opposite sex, and in the case of boys, about 75% of them become homosexuals, i.e. they do not want to be females, they want to be lovers of males. Many of them completely forget that they wanted to be girls when they were children.

The other factor that has contributed to the myth of “born gay” is Gay Science—or, rather, pseudo-science. There are a group of gay people who happen to be scientists of one sort or another. These people are gays first, and scientists later, and they use science in the service of gay propaganda. (And they must not be confused with another group of true scientists who happen to be gay. The latter are like scientists everywhere, devoted to their profession and not preoccupied with their sexual conflicts.)

About ten years ago several gay scientists made headlines by publishing studies which seemed at that time to suggest that gayness was heritable, at least partially. All of these men dropped out of serious scientific work eventually and became propagandists for the gay movement. But at the time they were taken seriously by the world and especially by the media. Simon LeVay believed that he had discovered that the brains of gay men were anatomically different from those of straight men. Dean Hamer believed that he had discovered a “gay gene” and published a book with that title. And two psychologists—Michael Bailey and Richard Pillard—believed that they had found evidence that suggested that gayness had a genetic cause.

After more than ten years none of these studies—which were published in reputable journals—has ever been replicated or confirmed. In fact their authors have in one way or another repudiated their earlier work. Here’s what LeVay says now, “It’s important to stress what I didn’t find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn’t show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work.”

Another reason the myth dies so hard is that there is a large gay influence in the world of media, and because of this there is a conscious and unconscious tendency on the part of editors, writers, and reporters to support gay rights in whatever way they can. (See Horsefeathers’ demonstration of this fact at the end of “Horsefeathers Award for Cruel and Moronic Editing goes to the New York Times” on March 9, 2004.) Thus, the “gay gene” story got front-page coverage when Hamer’s work was published, and no coverage, even after ten years, stating that nothing ever came of Hamer’s “gay gene” theory. So the ghostly “gay gene” remains as a factoid in the media world even though its author has long ago repudiated the idea.

The fact is that all complex human traits have biogenetic as well as learned components—some more, some less of each. The fact is that even if a trait has genetic components, it is possible to learn behaviors that can alter it significantly. In fact most learned skills—like typewriting, or pitching—involve over-riding natural inclinations and behaviors.

And homosexual behaviors and attitudes can and are unlearned by some people, sometimes by individuals on their own, and sometimes with the help of others.

Probably the most famous case of spontaneous sexual conversion is that of John Maynard Keynes. From the time he was a student at Eton he was an unregenerate "sodomite"—a word he used to describe himself and his homosexual friends. Then, for no known reason, at the age of thirty he wrote to his lover, Duncan Grant, that for the first time he had "had a woman." Subsequently he appeared to gradually lose interest in homosexual relationships and turn instead to the companionship of women. When he was forty he married Lydia Lopokova, one of Diaghelev's prima ballerinas, and remained happily married until he died at the age of sixty-two.

But Horsefeathers advocates neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality, only the truth about both.

STILL AMONGST THE LIVING. WHY?

        Most of us assumed the war against Nazism ended with World War II. Not so. Its ideology lives on in the Arab world, sheltered under the religious mantle of Islam. Here is the bloodlust of the pediatrician-leader of Hamas, Dr. Rantisi, true heir to Dr. Joseph Mengele.

New Hamas Chief: Bush Is 'Enemy of God'
AP
Hamas leader Rantisi spoke at Gaza's Islamic University on Sunday.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (March 28) - "The new leader of the militant group Hamas on Sunday called President Bush the enemy of Islam and said that "God declared war" against Bush, the United States and Israel..."
See the rest here

EUROPE AND RADICAL ISLAM

        In the upcoming election, the candidate closest to Western Europe's leaders is John Kerry. The joking references to "the French looking Senator who, by the way, served in Vietnam" are a shorthand way of indicating the affinity of world view between the Democratic candidate and Europe's frightened leaders. Kerry even boasted of their support, until he realized the political effect--though he won't name names. The entire democratic party now counts itself ideologically and politically closer to those leaders than to the hated President Bush. Fouad Ajami explores the Euro-appeasers dilemmas. American voters should keep this in mind when choosing their President:

"...Europe's leaders know Europe's dilemmas. In ways both intended and subliminal, the escape into anti-Americanism is an attempt at false bonding with the peoples of Islam. Give the Arabs--and the Muslim communities implanted in Europe--anti-Americanism, give them an identification with the Palestinians, and you shall be spared their wrath. Beat the drums of opposition to America's war in Iraq, and the furies of this radical Islamism will pass you by. This is seen as a way around the troubles. But there is no exit that way. It is true that Spain supported the American campaign in Iraq, but that aside, Spain's identification with Arab aims has a long history. Of all the larger countries of the EU, Spain has been most sympathetic to Palestinian claims. It was only in 1986 that Spain recognized Israel and established diplomatic ties. With the sole exception of Greece, Spain has shown the deepest reserve toward Israel. Yet this history offered no shelter from the bombers of March 11..."

See the rest here

March 27, 2004

U.N. CRIMES

        In our collective holiday from history following the end of the Cold War, we forgot to notice that human nature hadn’t changed. Utopian fantasies of a perfect world did not die with the Soviet Union. Instead, the world’s socialists, in alliance with Islamist religious utopians, continued pursuit of their unachievable goal of remaking human nature. They merely shifted the main venue of their efforts to the dream world of the United Nations where they could collectively blame Israel and America for their own failings. Now, however, thanks to successful war in Iraq, we’re learning just why the UN “objectively” strove to save Saddam. It turns out that the deaths of Iraqi children helped finance the lifestyle of the UN’s diplomats. Ah, those dinners at Bouley, paid for by money skimmed from the oil-for-food program. Don't expect to see much coverage in the MSM; after all, they share the fantasies of John Kerry that we, not the French, Germans and assorted kleptocrats were to blame for the U.N.'s failure to collectively support the war.
        A New Zealand journalist provides a clear eyed account of the growing scandal.

Shams, scams and Kofi Annan

27.03.2004
By ROGER FRANKLIN
"Almost a year ago, when kitchen workers at United Nations headquarters walked off the job in a dispute over holiday pay, the cream of the world's diplomats knew just what to do. They thronged to the site's five unattended restaurants and stole everything that wasn't nailed down.

As one witness marvelled after seeing an envoy make off with a baked turkey under one arm and a framed picture under the other, "They were locusts!"

The next day, however, the incident hadn't happened - not officially, anyway. A UN spokesmen swore blind that a senior official, concerned that his colleagues might go hungry, had granted permission for staffers to help themselves. There had been no mass theft, in other words, because after the event, everything was declared free for the taking.

As excuses go, that one had the benefit of brazen originality. With a few simple words, official honesty was once again the order of business inside the glass-fronted monolith overlooking the East River.

If all episodes of pillage were as easy to explain, the UN might not today be facing what is shaping up as the biggest scandal in its chequered history.

This time it isn't cutlery, baked hams and wine-cellar locks that have gone missing, but at least US$11 billion ($17 billion), depending on who is doing the counting - or rather, the guessing, since the UN has been curiously disinclined to investigate where all that money went..."
See the rest here.

March 26, 2004

OUR FRIENDS THE EGYPTIANS

Not reported in the politically correct MSM, lest we raise the question of whether the ROP is really a death cult disguised as a religion.

Cairo Imam asks God to "strike down the Jews"
See the rest here.

PALESTINIAN THEATER ARTS

Progress on the creative artistic front in the Arab world:

Palestinians reenact Yassin's assassination
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
GAZA

"...A young actor trying to look old and frail, his head covered gently with a white scarf and his beard painted silver, was blown from a wheelchair in a reenactment of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's assassination..."

R.O.P. PROVES EXISTENCE OF GOD

        In continuing news of intellectual progress during the 11th century, Palestinians report a theological breakthrough: "...This is clear evidence of God's existence," the lamb's owner Yahya Atrash told Reuters Television. "It was born with the words 'Allah' on one side and 'Mohammed' on the other." Palestinians said the Arabic letters of the name of God could be made out on the lamb's left flank, but it was harder to see the name of the Prophet Mohammed..." See the rest here

March 25, 2004

BILLIE VS. THE BARBARIANS

        Horsefeathers was sipping a Gentleman Jack, welcoming the imminent arrival of the new baseball season, and fumbling with his new I-Pod Mini. Amazingly, he quickly mastered it, and uploaded his Billie Holliday collection, whereupon he decided that civilization reached its peak with her recording of All Of Me, closely followed by This Year’s Kisses. It may have been downhill since, but thanks to our decadent technological culture, Billie’s heartbreaking voice will live on until Sharia law bans all erotic pleasure. Much as our liberal elites wish to deny it, we’re in a war to the death. Is it irreverent and trivializing to say we’re in a war to preserve our right to enjoy baseball, Billie Holliday and Gentleman Jack? I think not. Just ask the savages who blow up children to kill infidels. What do they hate and envy most? It’s our success, our genius at creating and democratizing pleasure, whether by conquering disease or by creating aesthetic objects, pushing the boundaries of knowledge, or by raising living standards more than any utopian scheme ever could, and spreading our bounty across the globe. Erotic pleasure, available to all, non-believers and believers alike, is the enemy. If anyone at all is entitled to undertake the pursuit of pleasure, the power of patriarchs is weakened. The controlling authority of sheikhs and mullahs is undermined by the universal quest for pleasure. Who needs them when the lowliest peasant can access the Internet, can watch Shakespeare or Real Sex, can listen to Bach or Billie? Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, the basis of the greatest revolution in human history. Human nature doesn’t change and success generates envy, hatred and the wish to level down, to extract revenge. Whether through utopian egalitarianism or violent destruction, or a combination of both, the aggrieved will seek revenge. Civilization is a precious and fragile achievement. It requires a robust willingness to defend itself, to inflict immense destruction on its foes. That means as Winston Churchill pointed out, the greatest danger comes from the loss of nerve, the loss of confidence in our way of life:
        "The worst difficulties from which we suffer...come from within. They do not come from the cottages of the wage earners, they come from a peculiar type of brainy people always found in our country, who, if they add something to its culture, take much from its strength. Our difficulties come from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals.... Nothing can save England if she will not save herself. If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern, if we lose our will to live, then indeed our story is told."
        So at the end of a good week in the war on terror, let’s drink a toast to the IDF, to Billie, to baseball, to Churchill, and to the democratic pursuit of pleasure.

RICHARD CLARKE VS. RICHARD CLARKE

Now:

"...I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months... I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism." -- Richard Clarke, interview on CBS's "60 Minutes," March 21, 2004

Then

"...the Bush administration decided then, you know, mid-January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings... The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.... [T]hat process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after al Qaeda.... [T]he principals met at the end of the summer [of 2001], approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance. And then changed strategy from one of rollback with al Qaeda over the course [of] five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al Qaeda." -- Richard Clarke, background briefing to reporters, August 2002

* * * *

Now

" ...the Bush administration did virtually nothing during the first months of the administration prior to 9/11." -- Richard Clarke, CNN interview, March 23, 2004

Then

"And you know, the other thing to bear in mind is the shift from the rollback strategy to the elimination strategy. When President Bush told us in March to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem, then that was the strategic direction that changed the NSPD [National Security Presidential Directive] from one of rollback to one of elimination." -- Richard Clarke, background briefing to reporters, August 2002

* * * *

Now

Jamie Gorelick: "When Dr. Rice writes in the Washington Post, 'No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration,' is that true?"

Richard Clarke: "No." -- exchange during 9/11 Commission Hearing, March 24, 2004

Then

"There was no plan on al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration." -- Richard Clarke background briefing to reporters, August 2002

* * * *

Now

"[The war to liberate Iraq] greatly strengthened the terrorist movement because it has given the Islamic radicals throughout the Middle East a justification for going after the United States." -- Richard Clarke, interview on ABC's "Good Morning, America," March 22, 2004

Then

"The War Against America; An Unfathomable Attack" -- New York Times headline, September 12, 2001 -- 18 months before the war to liberate Iraq began

"The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.' We -- with God’s help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it." -- Osama bin Laden's Edict Calling for Killing of Americans, February 23, 1998 -- 5 years before the war to liberate Iraq began

* * * *

Other Noteworthy Exchanges & Interviews (I)

Slade Gorton: "Assuming that the recommendations that you made... had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?"

Richard Clarke: "No."

Gorton: "It just would have allowed our response, after 9/11, to be perhaps a little bit faster?"

Richard Clarke: "Well, the response would have begun before 9/11."

Slade Gorton: "Yes, but there was no recommendation, on your part or anyone else's part, that we declare war and attempt to invade Afghanistan prior to 9/11?"

Clarke: "That's right." -- exchange during 9/11 Commission Hearing, March 24, 2004

* * * *

Other Noteworthy Exchanges & Interviews (II)

Richard Clarke: "The interagency group on which I sat... we never asked for a particular action to be authorized and were refused. We were never refused. Any time we took a proposal to higher authority, with one or two exceptions, it was approved..."

Frontline: "But didn't you push for military action after the [al Qaeda bombing of the USS] Cole?"

Richard Clarke: "Yes, that's one of the exceptions."

Frontline: "How important is that exception?"

Richard Clarke: "I believe that, had we destroyed the terrorist camps in Afghanistan earlier, that the conveyor belt that was producing terrorists sending them out around the world would have been destroyed." -- PBS's Frontline, March 20, 2002

* * * *

Richard Clarke's Characterization v. His Deputy's Characterization

“There are three members of my staff who were in the meeting and who have already talked to '60 Minutes' and to other media outlets and said that they remember it just as I do.... It wasn’t a calm, rational discussion in which he said, ‘Look under every rock and do due diligence.’ It was a very intimidating message which said, ‘Iraq. Give me a memo about Iraq and 9/11.’ It was very clear what I thought and what all – everyone else in the room thought was that he wanted to see that there was a connection.” -- Richard Clarke, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, March 22, 2004

“One ally, Mr. Clarke's former deputy, Roger Cressey… cast Mr. Bush's instructions to Mr. Clarke less as an order to come up with a link between Mr. Hussein and Sept. 11, and more as a request to ‘take a look at all options, including Iraq.’ He backed off Mr. Clarke's suggestion that the president's tone was intimidating. ‘I'm not going to get into that,’ Mr. Cressey said. ‘That is Dick's characterization.’” -- New York Times, March 23, 2004

* * * *

The (Admitted) Reason for Richard Clarke's Stridency: The War to Liberate the People of Iraq

" ...the reason I am strident in my criticism of the President of the United States is because by invading Iraq... the president of the United States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism." -- Richard Clarke, testimony before the 9/11 Commission Hearing, March 24, 2004

Hattip to Ruth King

March 24, 2004

SPIRITUAL LEADER'S HEIRS

        All of us infidels are supposed to tremble at the "rage" expressed by Islamo-fascists. What big, brave warriors they are! Really? As far as Horsefeathers can determine this is folly and cant. The only thing these Islamo-fascists are good at is hiding behind the skirts of women and children. Here is the latest from the followers of the late "spiritual leader" Sheikh Yassin:

"Israel Defense Forces paratroopers caught a Palestinian boy, aged about 8, wearing an explosive belt at the Hawara roadblock south of Nablus in the West Bank. Sappers detonated the device in a controlled explosion..."

        For all their brave talk about welcoming martyrdom, these barbarians eagerly try to save their own skins. None of their children are turned into human bombs. So the best way to deal with them is to disabuse them of the projected idea that civilized peoples are weak. We must rub their noses in their own weakness. Killing Yassin will help; it already has helped the morale of Jews around the world and should be followed up with similar targeting of his successor, Dr. Rantisi and the world's oldest terrorist, Yasser Arafat. Furthermore, the targeting of Yassin sent a message to Islamo-fascists around the world, that appeasement is a Euro-socialist stance, one not shared by Israel and the United States.

March 23, 2004

LAST WORDS OF A 'SPIRITUAL LEADER'

         Before the IDF sent Sheikh Yassin to his just reward he blessed his followers with his 'spiritual' last thoughts:
        The Hamas Web site on Tuesday published a message it said Yassin had sent to the upcoming Arab summit in Tunisia. Yassin reiterated that violence was the only way to drive out the Israelis, and demanded Arab countries cut all ties with Israel.
         "...The land of Palestine is an Arab, Islamic land which was occupied with the force of weapons by the Jewish Zionists and we will not get it back except with the force of weapons," the letter read..."

March 21, 2004

SO SORRY, WE MEANT TO MURDER JEWISH JOGGERS

These are Yasser Arafat's special brigade of savages--the people our State Dept. still wants to have their own state:
"...The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades issued a statement saying that the killing of Khoury was a case of "mistaken identity," and that they thought Khoury was a settler. The statement also said that from the point of view of the organization, Khoury was a shahid (martyr)..." See the rest here.

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