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Deja vu — Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Dr. Judith Apter Klinghoffer taught history and International relations at Rowan University, Rutgers University, the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing as well as at Aarhus University in Denmark where she was a senior Fulbright professor. She is an affiliate professor at Haifa University. Her books include Israel and the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Jews and the Middle East: Unintended Consequences and , International Citizens' Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Noam Schreiber, How Germany became a thorn in America’s side. Merkel refused to destroy the German economy in the manner Obama destroyed the American one. This is not news to my readers but Noam thinks it is unforgivable. I could not help smiling.

China’s View of South Asia and the Indian Ocean The media is finally awakening to the India china conundrum that I have been writing about for years. Robert Kaplan correctly told Fareed Zakaria that the world is facing a "balance of power flanked with three- dimensional chess, essentially." Are your seat belts fastened?

Israeli Knesset Member Hanin Zou'bi: I Do Not Represent the State of Israel but the Palestinian Struggle Are there any red lines left in Israel? None that I can see.

Bruce Kesler, New York Times Reports (Sorta) On Brooklyn College’s Indoctrination Book Can anyone take the college's claims of impartial naivete at face value?

Posted on Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 2:55 PM | Comments (0) | Top

PEACE TALKS MEAN ISRAELI ORPHANS

Sorry, but there is no other way of summing it up. I would be surprise if the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to realize that agreeing to renew peace talks with the Palestinians will mean additional Israeli orphans. They are seven more this week and the negotiations have only started. Pregnant Talya Imes and her Yitzhak left 6 orphans. Kochava Even-Haim just one. Avishai Shendler was a newly wed. It is no wonder that Hundreds attend terror victims' funerals. The Shendler's daughter, Ruth, represented Israel's indomitable spirit when she addressed her parents:

Only two weeks ago you celebrated your 25th anniversary and promised to celebrate the 50th. 19 years you raised me . . . . Thank you, G-d for the wonderful parents.
It has always been important for you to work on your relationship. It was so, this time. You went together. Mom, I promise you to take care of the family. To continue to do what was important to you, to keep the family together. I will support the little ones who will grow up without a mother and father . . . .

The youngest "little one" is but four years old. I thought about that when I read the vicious terror attack described as a natural disaster: Israeli settlers killed. By the way, those who wish to better understand these "settlers" should read Risa Miller's Welcome to Heavenly Heights. It shines an apolitical light on the daily lives of Orthodox American Jews who choose to live in the settlements.

I stumbled on her more recent novel My life before and after. It focuses on the collision between a-religious and newly religious American Jews. She is a most insightful writer able to deal with sensitive intra-Jewish issues with gentleness and humor.

But back to reality. Other leaders have to worry about the price of war, Israeli leaders have to worry about the price of talking peace, especially since the talks have yet to achieve any beneficial results for either Israelis or Palestinians.

Nor do I believe that these talks would have any other results. There are too many Islamists and leftists determined not to lose their favorite wedge issue and the rest of the world is too soft to wrangle it away from them. Oh, yes, G-d save us, Barack Obama, our hapless post American president needs something he can present as an achievement.

Hillary Clinton promises that the US will not impose a solution. Given the upcoming November elections, she may be telling the truth at the moment. The real test will come after November. In the meantime, let's hope we will not send too many additional Israelis to heaven.

Posted on Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 12:36 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Monday, August 23, 2010

NO TO BOOK BURNING

Book burnings have a long ignominious history. Now a self serving Florida cleric wishes to add another chapter. He plans Qurans. Religious leaders speak out against International Burn a Quran Day as well they should. I hope the cleric relents or some way is found to stop it.

The very notion is heart breaking.

Posted on Monday, August 23, 2010 at 2:37 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Sunday, August 22, 2010

MOSQUE DIVIDES MUSLIMS AS WELL

Not all Muslims support the mosque which its supporters no longer wish to call Ground Zero mosque despite the fact the Imam said he intentionally placed on the spot where one of the wings of the attacking planes fell. Many Muslim abroad are dubious. Some even go as far as claiming the plan is part of a Zionist conspiracy. Nor are Western convinced of the wisdom of the plan. Indeed, Isabel Vincent reports that money Muslims are iffy on the mosque

At least one stateside benefactor of the Muslim cleric planning the $100 million Islamic center downtown appears to be running away from the project, raising more questions about how and where developers will raise the cash.
Washington, DC, power couple Samia and Abdul Huda Farouki have long supported Imam Abdul Feisal Rauf, who's leading the effort to build the controversial mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center site. But they're keeping the project at arm's length.

The first American beauty queen is more outspoken:

Rima, who is muslim, took a break from the stage to weigh in on the controversy over the proposed mosque to be built at the site near ground zero.
"I totally agree with President Obama with the statement on the constitutional rights of freedom of religion," said Fakih.
But the 24-year-old says while she supports freedom of religion in America, the people behind the mosque should consider the feelings of the families who lost loved ones on 9/11.
"It shouldn't be so close to the World Trade Center. We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion," said Fakih.

One can only hope that she does not share the fate of Raza, another mosque opponent. Toronto Sun reports: Muslim opponent of mosque reports threat

Last week Raza joined Maureen Basnicki a Canadian widow of 9-11 in attending a meeting about the mosque in New York City.
“They were very arrogant. They didn’t answer questions,” Raza told QMI Agency.
The meeting was hosted by Daisy Khan, the wife of the Imam promoting the mosque and Sharif El Gamal, the man whose property firm owns the land the mosque is to be built on.
Raza says she asked questions about who was financing the building, estimated to cost $100 million, and whether any of the money would come from countries other than the United States. There has been much speculation that the mosque is being funded through Saudi Arabian sources but at the Manhattan meeting Raza said there were no answers.
On Monday, back in Toronto, Raza says she received a call on her cellphone from a man who identified as Sharif El Gamal. “His tone was intimidating,” said Raza. “He accused me of 'jumping into’ the meeting he called and then said 'May Allah protect you.’ I was shocked and hung up.”
Raza says she took the phone call as a clear threat against her.
“Why would I need Allah’s protection?” asked Raza.

Here is proof that the problems true Muslim moderates face, not only in the ME, but also in Europe and America!

Posted on Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 12:02 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Friday, August 20, 2010

COOL

Posted on Friday, August 20, 2010 at 5:05 PM | Comments (0) | Top

SMILE, IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT

The Ruling Class Takes Care of Its Own; The excess pay and benefits in the public sector are outrageous — and unaffordable. I would add counter productive. They convince our best and brightest to eschew the wealth creating private sector for a wealth spending public one. It is a recipe for poverty.

By The Numbers: How many local government public welfare bureaucrats are there?

Ray Bradbury hates big government: 'Our country is in need of a revolution'

Hey Taxpayers, Get Ready To Pay For the Union Pension Failure Tsunami

Administrative Bloat at American Universities: The Real Reason for High Costs in Higher Education Why doesn't this surprise me or anyone, for that matter, who ever taught anything, anywhere?!

Posted on Friday, August 20, 2010 at 3:08 PM | Comments (0) | Top

OBAMA: FORGET IRAN. THINK DIRECT ISRAELI /PALESTIAN TALKS

For 17 years Israelis and Palestinians negotiated directly. In the end of 2008, in preparation for Barack Hussein Obama's presidency, the Palestinians walked out on those talks. It took them two years but they have finally sold that used car again. I am not sure they will benefit much from the sale. But the drowning (not Muslim!) American president may. This morning everybody is talking about a major Clinton/Obama "achievement:" the renewal of direct Israeli/Palestinian talks. And reading about the imminent firing up of Iran's first nuclear facility led you thought nuclearizing Iran is the real problem? No way! The US has just assured Israel that nuclear Iran is not imminent.

Yes, these are the same "experts" who in 2007 declared that Iran has stopped developing nuclear weapons in 2003. It seems they were fooled by double agent(s), the poor things. Once again, they are doing their best to make life for Ahmadinejad's Islamist theocracy and it's Russian enabler as worry free as possible in a run up to the launching of Bushere. No wonder, Iran celebrates with a broadcast of a test firing of a new surface-to-surface missile.

In addition to needing to distract attention from Iran and Afghanistan, the Obama administration badly needs to improve the Muslim image in the US and American image in the Muslim world. As Osama warned, Muslims like strong horses and Obama is far from being one. Indeed, his weakness coupled with Iranian machismo may be behind the Arab League insistence that the Palestinians return to direct negotiations. The kings hope Israel will save them from Ahmadinejad just as she has saved them from Nasser in 1967.

They are not the only ones. George Will asks: Will Israel do what the world won't? and answers: "If it attacks Iran, the world was warned. If not, the world may regret it." Of course, Israel must survive such operation and having Barack Obama in the White House increases significantly the risks to its survival. An annoyed George Will is right remind Obama and the rest of the world that Israel needs no patronizing lectures about taking risks especially since those lecturing are adding to the risks.

Israelis less than 50 years old have no memory of their nation within the 1967 borders set by the 1949 armistice that ended the War of Independence. The rest of the world seems to have no memory at all concerning the intersecting histories of Palestine and the Jewish people.
The creation of Israel did not involve the destruction of a Palestinian state, there having been no such state since the Romans arrived. And if the Jewish percentage of the world’s population were today what it was when the Romans ruled Palestine, there would be 200 million Jews. After a hazardous passage through two millennia without a homeland, there are 13 million Jews.
In the 62 years since this homeland was founded on one-sixth of 1 percent of the land of what is carelessly and inaccurately called “the Arab world,” Israelis have never known an hour of real peace. Patronizing American lectures on the reality of risks and the desirableness of peace, which once were merely fatuous, are now obscene.

I beg to differ. The world remembers very well the long history of Jewish victimization. It merely wished to continue it with impunity and clear conscience. The world did nothing to prevent nothing to stop the Nazi murder of European Jewry and will do nothing to prevent the Islamist murder of Israeli Jewry. It only wishes to feel good about it.

Israelis know this just too well. As an Israeli commander explained to Cliona Campbell, a young Irish Jewish volunteer, Our Only Resource is Our People and what a resource they are?! For 61 years they have successfully managed to fight the enemy with one hand and create a new world with another:

Israeli wins world's most prestigious math prize

Israel's top ten technologies that are transforming the Web

Let us hope there judgment and timing is as good as their technical capability.

Posted on Friday, August 20, 2010 at 12:10 PM | Comments (0) | Top

TURKISH TROUBLES

Twitter Campaign in Turkey Emerges Against Prime Minister Erdogan's Advisor Who Plans to Take a Fourth Wife Now that is something to worry about.

Posted on Friday, August 20, 2010 at 10:57 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Thursday, August 19, 2010

71% VIEW MOSQUE AS INSULT TO 9/11 VICTIMS

Despite the misleading headlines focusing on the fact 24% of Americans believe Barack Obama to be a Muslim, Time magazine's poll on Americans' Views on the Campaign, Religion and the Mosque Controversy reveals an involved and well informed public at least as far as the mosque issue is concerned. Consider the following results of the following questions:

11. As you may know, a group of Muslims in New York City has announced plans to build a community center and mosque on private property two blocks from the site where the World Trade Center stood. How closely have you been following this issue?
Very closely: 32%
Somewhat closely: 36%
Not very closely: 17% Not at all: 15%
No answer/Don't know: 1%
11 a. Some people say that building the Muslim community center and mosque near the World Trade Center site would serve as a symbol of the country's religious tolerance. Others say that building the mosque near the World Trade Center site would be an insult to those who died on 9/11. Which comes closest to your view, or do you agree somewhat with both views?
Serve as symbol of religious tolerance: 23%
Would be insult to those who died on 9/11: 44%
Agree with both: 27%
No answer/Don't know: 6%

In other words 68% of the public is following the Mosque story quite closely and understand the stakes. 71% believe that the mosque would be an insult to ground zero. At the same time 50% agree that it would serve as a symbol of religious tolerance. In other words, the question really is which concern trumps which?

12. Overall, do you favor or oppose the building of the Muslim community center and mosque near where the World Trade Center stood?
Favor: 26%
Oppose: 61%
No answer/Don't know: 13%

In other words, most of those polled preferred the interest of the victims. Do note their response to other questions reveals that the majority acknowledge the legal right of Muslims to participate fully in the American body politics:

15. Do you think that a Muslim should be allowed to ...
Run for President of the United States?
Yes: 61%
No: 32%
No answer/Don't know: 7%
Serve on the U.S. Supreme Court?
Yes: 65%
No: 28%
No answer/Don't know: 7%

Then came the question and answer that garnered all the headlines:

16. Do you personally believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim or a Christian?
Muslim: 24%
Christian: 47%
Other: 5%
No answer/Don't know: 24%

In other words, a quarter of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim. The answer is much less "incorrect" than the media makes it appear for Muslim law considers the child of a Muslim parent to be Muslim and Barack Obama's father was a Muslim. That does not mean that he practices the religion or that in this country (unlike in Muslim ones) he has not chosen to be a Christian. It does mean that the issue is less clear cut than it seems.

Does that mean that those who believe Barack Obama is a Muslim oppose his presidency? Not necessarily. Many may believe, as some pundits certainly do and I suspect the president himself does, that having Obama as president, just like building a mosque near ground zero, demonstrates American tolerance and lack of hostility to Islam as such. In other words, the president has benefited more than he has been hurt by his obvious Muslim connections. Indeed, many expected those connections to bear more fruit than they have so far.

Does that mean that 9/11 and the subsequent closer familiarity with Islam has not damage the American view of the faith? It most certainly has. Muslims are naturally viewed as more violent:

8. Turning to the Islamic religion, would you say that the Islamic religion is more likely than other religions to encourage violence against nonbelievers, less likely, or about the same as most other religions?
More likely: 46%
Less likely: 6%
Same as other religions: 39% No answer/Don't know: 10%

Not can Muslim expect to overcome that image soon. Just look at the difficulty Mormons have:

7. Thinking about various religious groups, overall, would you say that you have a very favorable view of the following religions, a somewhat favorable view, or a somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable view of the following religions?
Jewish:
Very favorable: 32%
Somewhat favorable: 43%
Somewhat unfavorable: 8%
Very unfavorable: 5%
No answer/Don't know: 12%
Catholic:
Very favorable: 34%
Somewhat favorable: 39%
Somewhat unfavorable: 10%
Very unfavorable: 7%
No answer/Don't know: 10%
Muslim:
Very favorable: 12%
Somewhat favorable: 32%
Somewhat unfavorable: 22%
Very unfavorable: 21%
No answer/Don't know: 14%
Protestant:
Very favorable: 33%
Somewhat favorable: 41%
Somewhat unfavorable: 9%
Very unfavorable: 4%
No answer/Don't know: 13%
Mormon:
Very favorable: 16%
Somewhat favorable: 41%
Somewhat unfavorable: 18%
Very unfavorable: 11%
No answer/Don't know: 14%

Raymond Ibrahim notes that "many non-Western Muslims reject the 9/11 mosque, while Western Muslims insist on it." Of course, he refers to the Muslim American elite and they are very much like other American elites, arrogant, insensitive and legalistic to the extreme.

Update: More Americans follow mosque story. It reflects another elite - voter split

Now 62% oppose the building of a mosque near where the World Trade Center stood in Lower Manhattan, compared to 54% in the previous survey. Twenty-five percent (25%) favor allowing the mosque to go ahead, and 13% more are not sure. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the Political Class, however, favor building the mosque near Ground Zero. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Mainstream voters are opposed.

Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 11:17 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

SMILE, IF YOU CAN

"The location was precisely a key selling point for the group of Muslims who bought the building in July." Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf explains

A presence so close to the World Trade Center, 'where a piece of the wreckage fell, sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11."

Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 2:37 PM | Comments (0) | Top

ARAB RESPONSE TO CORDOBA MOSQUE/ update

Arab press has been following Ground Zero mosque carefully and some do not like what they see:

Al-Arabiya Director: The Majority of Muslims Do Not Want or Need a Mosque Near Ground Zero

"I can't imagine that Muslims [actually] want a mosque at this particular location, because it will become an arena for the promoters of hatred, and a monument to those who committed the crime. Moreover, there are no practicing Muslims in the area who need a place to worship, because it is a commercial district. Is there anyone who is [really] eager [to build] this mosque?...

Arab News: reports Arabs distance themselves from Ground Zero Mosque

“Many Muslims fear that the mosque will become a shrine for Islamists, which would remind Americans of what Muslims did on 9/11,” Dr. Gamal Abd Al-Gawad, director of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo told The Media Line. “Some people express concern that if the mosque will be built, it will harm Muslims and Islam in America. It’s not good for Muslims and Islam to be in the heart of such a controversy,” he added.

The paper also carries an opinion piece by Mohammed Saidfuddin currently residing in Dhahran entitled: The Cordoba House: What Muslims should do As a convert to Islam and a New Yorker I agree that the Cordoba House should move to a new location, if it is to exist at all.

n several blogs I have read many comments supporting the rights of Muslims to establish a place of worship, yet many felt it insensitive to build an Islamic center so close to the “Ground Zero”. I agree and see this more as a provocation than an exercise of our rights and a proof that a Muslim can be a “good American” too. A good Muslim is a good citizen anywhere in the world he or she resides. Creating such hard feelings will make giving the message of Islam more difficult and I do not believe it will be overcome by trying to make a Muslim-flavored “YMCA” type of organization.
Second, it is amazing to find an Islamic organization with $100 million or the ability to raise such a staggering sum. There are many struggling Islamic schools in America that find it very difficult just to raise a few thousand dollars. I believe supporting these schools, especially those providing accredited education is far more important than a multipurpose, multicultural center with an indoor swimming pool in lower Manhattan, which is not a highly populated residential neighborhood.

Egypt's Al Ahram sees the affair as testing Muslim American relations and presents the opposition as limited to the right wing:

As these instances of Islamophobia grow across America, fueled by preachers of sweetness and light such as Pat Robertson and Ann Coulter, and TV networks like Fox News, some wonder if Cordoba House is such a good idea. Given the rancour and acidic bitterness the issue has already generated, which is being exploited by Muslim bashers, some think the promoters should just call off the whole thing. It now seems to defeat the very object of the project.
They're probably right.

Raymond Ibrahim reports that Top Muslims Condemn Ground Zero Mosque as a ‘Zionist Conspiracy’

A number of Al Azhar ulema expressed their opposition to building a mosque near [where] the events of September 11 [occurred], convinced that it is “a conspiracy to confirm a clear connection between the strikes of September [11] and Islam.” Dr. ‘Abd al-Mu‘ti Bayumi, a member of the Islamic Research Academy [of Al Azhar] told Al Masry Al Youm that he rejects the building of any mosque in this area [Ground Zero], because the “devious mentality” desires to connect these events [of 9/11] with Islam, though he maintains that Islam is innocent of this accusation. Instead, it is a “Zionist conspiracy,” which many are making use of to harm the religion. Likewise, Dr. Amna Nazir, professor of doctrine and philosophy at Al Azhar, expressed her rejection that a mosque be built near the World Trade Center, saying: “Building a mosque on this rubble indicates bad intention — even if we wished to shut our eyes, close our minds, and insist on good will. I hope it is a sincere step, and not a new conspiracy against Islam and Muslims.”

The Turkish Zaman Today, international relations analyst Mehmet Kalyoncu recommend replacing the Islamic center with an Interfaith one as it is suspicious of the motives behind it. He also warns that demands for reciprocity are bound to follow:

Although the project has lofty intentions behind it, the way it has been perceived and portrayed not only signals more harm than good for interfaith understanding, but also raises suspicions as to whether it is yet another stage in the whole setup to increase interfaith discord, to the contrary of the naïve intentions of its proponents. . . .
One thing is certain: When such a mosque is eventually built as planned, it should not be a surprise to anyone if Christian and Jewish groups living in majority Muslim countries claim their rights to build places of worship and similar religious centers for their communities. While they have every right to do so, it is also obvious that almost none of those Muslim majority countries are prepared and open enough to reciprocate the gesture, unless they undertake dramatic reforms in the realm of freedom of expression and freedom of religion.

Palestinian Researcher: A Legal Victory in Ground Zero Mosque Could Cause the Muslims to Lose the Battle that Counts – The One for Coexistence

As for the mosque that sparked so much opposition, and provided the conservative and Zionist right so much ammunition with which to attack the American Muslims – this too is a losing battle, politically and culturally, even if the [Muslims] involved in it win the legal [battle over it]. From a purely legal and theoretical perspective, the New York Muslims have the right to build a mosque and an Islamic center as they wish, within the boundaries of the municipal laws. They are citizens of this cosmopolitan city, just like any other citizens of any other religion. However, the principle that should guide those who wish to build the mosque transcends the [dry letter of the] law and the [goal] of scoring legal points. After all, a legal verdict permitting them to build a mosque against the will of over half the [city's] population cannot be regarded as a victory. Building a mosque near that place [i.e., Ground Zero], legally or illegally, is a provocation that hurts people's feelings, so it is inappropriate to insist on building it on that spot, of all places...

Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 2:17 PM | Comments (0) | Top

FED INCREASES THE "UNUSUAL UNCERTAINTY"

cphaed comments:

WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE.....AUDIT THE FED? AND THEN END THE FED????? PLEASE! they need to stop printing and diluting our dollar and they need to stop manipulating interest rates, stock prices and gold prices. we can weather the ups and downs of a free market, we cannot weather the ups and downs of manipulated markets.

The solution may be radical but I share the sentiment.

Fed wavers as the world gets the sweats

There does not seem to be a consensus at the Fed – or any other central bank – for further monetary loosening via the printing press, either because central bankers do not think it yet necessary; or because they are worried about expanding their balance sheets further; or, in the case of the US, perhaps because they want to put pressure on Congress not to tighten fiscal policy (for now, at least) by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire.
Yet if growth does continue to slow sharply, the Fed will surely ease policy further. It is already failing one of its two mandates: maximising employment. It is in severe danger of failing the other: keeping prices stable. Core inflation in the US is dropping fast.
The problem for investors is that they do not know when the Fed might pull that trigger. And since the medicine is powerful, the effects on asset markets are, in the short term at least, likely to be profound.
Those of a more bullish persuasion might argue that the Fed opened the door to more monetary stimulus by its actions last week. The more pessimistic fall into two camps. The first worries about the side-effects of these drugs (notably inflation), if administered in overly large doses. The second wonders how much worse things have to get before the Fed acts and whether, even if it does, the dose will be too timid. Perhaps all the Fed and other central banks can do when it comes to debt addiction, is to manage the worst symptoms of withdrawal.

Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

BBC PANORAMA ON IHH GAZA FLOTILLA

Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 12:27 PM | Comments (0) | Top

CAMBODIA & WEST : JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED

Theary Seng, whose book Daughter of the Killing Fields is forthcoming, asks: When will justice come to more senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge?

Late last month in Cambodia, Kaing Guek Eav—the killer known to all Cambodians as Comrade Duch—was finally convicted. The former commandant was found guilty by a U.N.-backed tribunal of crimes against humanity in the sadistic murders of at least 14,000 of his countrymen. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Though his conviction was a milestone for Cambodians who have waited years for some form of credible justice, many genocide survivors, including me, felt the punishment was far too soft given the severity of his crimes. After the Extraordinary Chambers—as the tribunal is formally known—deducted five years to redress violations of his rights when he was held illegally in prior military detention, and 11 years for the time he's already served, Comrade Duch would only serve 19 years behind bars: 11 hours of imprisonment for each person he slaughtered.
Yesterday came the welcome news that the prosecutors are appealing his sentence on the grounds that it's too lenient. Cambodians are heartened by the appeal but hope that it will not cause undue delays to the more pressing matter: the case against the "senior" Khmer Rouge leaders, the core of the Extraordinary Chambers's mission. . . .
Comrade Duch was the commandant of only one Khmer Rouge detention center (Tuol Sleng) and only one killing field (Choeung Ek). There were at least 200 detention centers and thousands of killing fields spread across the country. Phnom Penh was not the only crime scene: Almost every rice field, pagoda and school in the country became a site for slaughter.
The Khmer Rouge rounded up their victims—mainly fellow Cambodians evacuated from the capital and major towns—on the grounds that they were tainted by Western imperialism. They gathered them in the middle of the night for mass execution into graves usually dug by the victims the day before.
Bullets were saved for the war against Vietnam. Instead the Khmer Rouge butchered and whacked their own people from behind at the stem of the neck with crude farm instruments like hoes. Those who didn't die immediately were asphyxiated under the bodies piled on top of them in mass graves.
Cold War considerations led Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski to encourage China (who hardly needed such encouragement) to support Pol Pot after he was overthrown by Vietnam.
Personally, I am must more annoyed with the left's refusal to deny that the blood shed happened as it was going on. They have no excuse and they continue to inflict damage on the young with amazing impunity. The left has yet to admit that totalitarian Communism was vile beyond imagination. That is the reason that while few students would admit to having Nazi or Fascist views. They have little difficulty advocating Communist ones. See,

Stuart Elliott, From Collective Guilt to Collective Silence A report on the far left’s early reaction to “one of the most brutal bloodbaths of modern history.”
* Human Rights in Cambodia: 1-10 11-25 26-40 41-56 57-70 [PDF] Congressional hearings in which David Chandler expressed agnosticism about the bloodbath reports and Gareth Porter openly defended the Khmer Rouge. Porter’s performance was considered so disgraceful that one Senator compared him to apologists for Nazism.
Sophal Ear, The Khmer Rouge Canon 1975-1979: The Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia [PDF] Important study documenting the academic campaign to defend the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian genocide. The deniers included Gareth Porter, George Hildebrand, Malcolm Caldwell, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman.
The Thoughts of Ben Kiernan [PDF]
Sophal Ear, One Side of the Two-Sided Switch: Benedict Kiernan and the Khmer Rouge The shocking record of scholar Ben Kiernan, who supported the Khmer Rouge during the slaughter and then defended the brutal dictatorship imposed by communist Vietnam. Kiernan has been described as “poacher-turned-gamekeeper in the field of genocide.”

Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 11:43 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Monday, August 16, 2010

RUSSIA: OBAMA CONSENTED TO BUSHIR

Martin Malin and Evgeny Artyukov report

Russia also shares the U.S. interest in nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and has supported successive rounds of UN sanctions against Iran. For its part, the Obama administration has consented to Russia’s role in supplying low- enriched uranium to fuel the Bushehr nuclear power plant and transferring the spent fuel from Iran. At the same time, while the United States no longer sees Bushehr as a nuclear proliferation risk, there are still broader U.S. concerns about whether Iran’s nuclear fuel could eventually be used for military purposes.

So, stop expecting an Israeli bombing of Bushehr.

Posted on Monday, August 16, 2010 at 9:44 PM | Comments (0) | Top

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE ON OBAMA &THE MOSQUE

FROM BBC Monitoring:

Russian experts slam Obama's decision to back mosque near 9/11 site Text of report by Gazprom-owned, editorially independent Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy on 14 August

(Presenter) By his actions (backing the construction of a mosque about two blocks from the former World Trade Centre site) the US President (Barack Obama) is driving a wedge between the Christian and Muslim worlds, the chairman of Russia's Islamic Committee, Geydar Dzhemal, has said. In fact Barack Obama is trying to disguise a more serious intention, he said.
(Dzhemal) As long as all this is discussed, as long as they point fingers at this, someone will be touched, someone else will curse, but in any case this is a strong veil. After this, no one will be able to say that the USA is an aggressor and has malicious intentions. One will be cut short at once, and pointed towards this mosque project. But at the same time, geopolitical intentions have not disappeared. If we compare the USA's course to these decisions, for example, we can only draw one conclusion - this is a very strong misleading measure.
(Presenter) The latest statements by Barack Obama may seriously affect his rating, well-known journalist Mikhail Taratuta has said.
(Taratuta) Serious irritation with Barack (Obama) is increasing. This may add to it. All the more so since there were no protests against the construction of the mosque. There were proposals to construct it in a another place, because it does not look very ethical (to build it) in the place where such a tragedy occurred through the fault of Islamists.
(Presenter) When approving the construction of the mosque, Obama was first of all guided by political correctness, a member of the academic council of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, Aleksey Arbatov, has said. Obama's actions may lead to serious consequences, he added.
(Arbatov) It will lead to Muslims saying that they have had another victory: we destroyed two sky-scrappers there and they are grateful to us and built a mosque there. This will push radical Islamists to even more impudence and aggression. For Obama, I think this will be a big minus in his records. The American public, at least a considerable part of it, will not approve of such an extravagant gesture. He is most likely to have been guided by political motives to show that it is not Islam to blame, but extremists.
I think this is not correct at its core, because this tragedy is on Islam's conscience. And they should not fool us as if Islam has nothing to do with this. It has. From the point of view of domestic policy, Obama has very much shot himself in the foot and he will be reminded of this on more than one occasion.
(Presenter) But at the same time, the fact that Obama approved the construction of the mosque does not mean that this is a final decision, Arbatov said. It must also be approved by local authorities, above all.

Posted on Monday, August 16, 2010 at 9:33 PM | Comments (0) | Top

CORDOBA MOSQUE, LIKE SKOKIE MARCH, LEGAL BUT HURTFUL/updates

The most apt comparison between the debate surrounding the planned ground zero mosque is with the one which surrounded the planned Nazi marches in Skokie, a Chicago suburb inhabited by a large number of Jewish holocaust survivors. The US constitution guarantees the right of American Muslims to disregard the pain they will cause the victims of the Islamist terrorist attack on 9/11 just as the constitution guaranteed American Nazis the right to disregard the pain of the victims of the Nazi holocaust.

Not surprisingly, the supreme court upheld that Nazi right just as it would uphold the Muslim right. In Skokie the issues related to freedom of speech and assembly. The court held:

But our task here is to decide whether the First Amendment protects the activity in which appellees wish to engage, not to render moral judgment on their views or tactics. No authorities need be cited to establish the proposition, which the Village does not dispute, that First Amendment rights are truly precious and fundamental to our national life. Nor is this truth without relevance to the saddening historical images this case inevitably arouses. It is, after all, in part the fact that our constitutional system protects minorities unpopular at a particular time or place from governmental harassment and intimidation, that distinguishes life in this country from life under the Third Reich....

Barack Hussein Obama similarly reaffirmed the freedom of religion when he declared in the midst of the pomp and circumstance of the White House Iftar celebration:

But let me be clear. As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan.

Responding to the unfavorable reception of his legalistic words, he added that he has yet to express an opinion as to the wisdom of building the mosque in that particular location. Obama's words clearly implied he did think the selection of the mosque unwise. Choosing another location would be much wiser. Let us remember that following their supreme court victory, the American Nazis compromised and agreed to march in Chicago, not Skokie. Muslim activists immediately understood the import of Obama's words and expressed their disappointment. The White House spokesman issued a statement standing by the legalistic statement.

Nothing is less genuine than the protestations of innocence by the Imam and his activist wife or the comparison of the Cordoba mosque to the 92 street Jewish Y. Radical Jews have never bombed the West side of Manhattan nor killed 3000 Americans in the name of Judaism. Of course, Muslims specialize in not taking responsibility to anything done by their own and insist that no one demand it of them. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama seconded that demand and Americans, by and large, went along with it until now.

The provocative plan to build the Cordoba mosque is the result. Far from empowering moderates or deradicalizing Islamists, the appeasement policy pulled the rug from under the moderates and strengthened the hand of radicals. Why end terror and provocation when it merely adds to the official respect accorded to Muslims even in America? After all, Muslims are invited to Iftar celebration at the White House. Their Imams travel around the Middle East at State Department expense when they are not teaching American soldiers how to treat the enemy with respect.

I do not know if the mosque will be end up being built but my gut tells me that many Americans will never feel the same about their Muslim neighbors. The attention garnered in Skokie did not strengthen the American Nazi party. They won a Pyrrhic victory. Today there is a holocaust museum in Skokie. Still, the name of the village is forever entwined with that disgusting publicity stunt.

So, no. I do not think building the mosque two blocks from ground zero will be wise. Indeed, if he cares about moderate Muslim Americans, Barack Hussein Obama would be wise to find a way to make sure it will not be built. After all, the Nazi marches were temporary while the mosque is to be a permanent fixture with which Muslim Americans will be forcing not only the 9/11 families but all of America to live. Every tourist bus guide will point out the mosque and remind tourists, foreign and domestic, of the callousness exhibited by the American Muslim community and contrast it in their mind with the incredibly tolerance exhibited by their non-Muslim fellow Americans.

For the sake of good interfaith relations, it would be wise to build the Cordoba elsewhere. Americans tend to forgive and forget swiftly. It is time for Muslim Americans to demonstrate that they do not only demand their rights but respect and care for the sensibilities of their fellow Americans who shed their blood to uphold those rights. They should tell that self aggrandizing publicity seeking Imam to find another, less provocative location for his "community center." Nothing will prove better that tolerance and good will are the real motivators of the Imam and his backers.

Alas, "The developers of the so-called Ground Zero mosque rejected New York Gov. David Paterson's offer to provide state property if the project is moved farther away from where the twin towers once stood."

You draw your conclusions.

UPDATES:Mosque Developer Rejects Meeting With NY Gov...

Posted on Monday, August 16, 2010 at 12:59 PM | Comments (4) | Top

Sunday, August 15, 2010

SACHS: PANICKED OBAMA DROVE US DEEPER INTO THE DITCH/update

Barack Obama's favorite economic narrative goes like this: The Republicans drove us into the ditch and he has been able to pull us out only part of the way. Therefore, though times are bad, reelecting Republicans would mean undoing all his good work. Challenging this narrative is none other than very liberal Colombia University economics professor Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs argues that instead of beginning to pull us out of the ditch, the Obama administration, unlike the Merkel one, drove us deeper into the ditch. Why? Because they panicked and opted for short term solutions. Sachs know. He was there:

SACHS: We were on a binge, and the binge ended, as all binges do. And what I found surprising about the Obama approach was that it basically was trying to get people to start spending again where they were saying we're tired, we're tired, we need to save a little bit. And once one realizes that consumption is going to be down, we'd need a different approach from simply "stimulus," from cutting taxes for households to spend more. . . .
So we needed the government to come in, in a different way. I don't think the markets was going to lead the recovery on its own. But what I did think is we need a long-term strategy, we need a long- term strategy based around investment rather than consumption. . . .
ZAKARIA: Now, the argument against that, I assume, is that you would have -- you would be allowing, you'd be countenancing a long decline. Or in the short term, that there would be jobs lost, there would be -- in other words, by not shoring up the system, you would be accepting high unemployment and slow growth.
SACHS: I think that's exactly right, that I believed that there was no magic solution. At the beginning I said the unemployment rate could get to 10 percent. Lo and behold, it did. And I did say, and we spoke about it on your show just before the administration came in, that you can't just blow up the deficit and do everything to try to make a binge and a bubble somehow come out perfectly. We should have taken a deep breath, given help to people that needed it temporarily, but understood that exactly what did happen was bound to happen, but not to break the budget and not to fail in thinking about the longer term.
What's happened is the stimulus substituted for thinking. The stimulus substituted for planning.
What I really worried about was -- and I said it to the White House then -- this may be the last thing you do in the macro economy. . . .
ZAKARIA: What did they say to you?
SACHS:
Well, they said we've got to act, we've got to act right now, it's desperate. I don't think it was so desperate. And I don't think it was solvable the way they decided to solve it.
ZAKARIA: So, going forward, you wouldn't do more stimulus? And you are worried about the deficit?
SACHS: I'm absolutely worried about the deficit because all over the world countries that have deficits like we do, 10 percent of GNP, are hitting the wall, facing massive crises. When is that going to happen with us? We don't know. But it could happen at any time because --
ZAKARIA: And if it does, that's the part -- the downside here is quite dramatic. If suddenly the world stops financing our deficit, you have to raise interest rates up very high.
SACHS: And it's not a theory because we see it. It's not a hypothetical.
In the U.K., in Spain, in Portugal, in Greece, in Ireland, they hit the wall. They had to take truly very harsh and tough measures in response to the loss of confidence. And I think we're, in any event, digging ourselves into a very, very deep hole.
Do we really want to owe trillions and trillions of dollars to China? Is that the best that America can do? I don't think so. Do we really want to play right on the edge of this massive indebtedness, which is what we're doing?
I was shocked, frankly, that when the administration came in and saw a trillion-dollar deficit, unprecedented, that they added to it and thought that that would work both politically and economically, rather than saying this is tough, we don't have a magic solution for the first year or two, but what we do need to do is have a solution for years three through 10 based on real investment and the real need for U.S. competitiveness. That's what has been missing.

I would add that Ben Bernanke and his fellow experts on whom Barack Obama relies so failed because they committed a basic logical fallacy. They assumed that if doing X results in Y, the opposite of X would result in the opposite of Y.

Ben Bernanke studied the depression and believed he succeeded in identifying the reasons for the Roosevelt administration's failure to pull the US out of that ditch. From that he deduced that to pull the American economy from the ditch all he has to do is do the opposite. The Roosevelt administration tightened, he will loosen. But, of course, as Aristotle has already pointed out this type of reasoning is fallacious. he was right not to repeat Roosevelt's mistakes. He was wrong to assume the solution is doing the opposite. Indeed, Bernanke spendthrift way, has not only failed to pull us out of the ditch. It has pulled us deeper into it in addition to squandering many of the tools needed to help pull us out.

What should be done?

NOTHING!

IT IS TIME FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO STEP ASIDE AND LET THE MARKET AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DO THEIR MAGIC.

Update: 61% of Americans agree that "the economy has gotten worse or stayed the same on Obama's watch."

Posted on Sunday, August 15, 2010 at 4:12 PM | Comments (0) | Top