Michael Totten Is Back from Lebanon ...

... and experiencing massive culture shock in Portland, Oregon. He writes about it here.

Jet travel is a funny thing. One day I'm driving around South Lebanon near Fatima's Gate at the Lebanese/Israeli border looking at the Golan Heights, Hezbollah's roadside propaganda, and scorched tanks.

Next day I'm in calm and collected Portland sipping espresso while surfing the Internet. As if jet lag weren't enough, I'm still experiencing culture shock inside my own country. A month really is long enough for that to kick in. ...

Read the whole thing, with pictures, at the link.

Blair Locks Up a Third Term

Britain's Labour Party has won enough seats to declare victory in today's general election, according to the latest news from the BBC, enabling Tony Blair to count on a third term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Tony Blair has won an historic third term in government for Labour but with a drastically reduced majority.
Mr Blair pledged to respond "sensibly and wisely" to the result, which the BBC predicts will see his majority cut from 167 in 2001 to 66.

The Conservatives have mounted a strong challenge but their overall share of the vote will be similar to 2001.

The Lib Dems have made big inroads on Labour majorities and look set to end up with an estimated 60 seats.

Morning Report: April 29, 2005

Debka: Osama bin Laden may be dead. Debka is currently reporting that Osama bin Laden may be dead: 'An announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death appears Friday in one of his close aides’ most credible Web sites. It has sparked a storm of controversy in al Qaeda circles, some of whom claim notice is false. Signed by the Pen of Jihad Warriors, the site provides no information on circumstances of death, only asks: Where are those who break out of borders? Where are the lamenters? Where are those who throw themselves from the tops of towers and skyscrapers? Where are the heart-rending cries?' Morning Report notes that previous claims of OBL's "death" from Debka have proven to be untrue; therefore, MR suggests that the current claim be taken seriously but with a degree of skepticism. This site will post any new developments. (Debka)

Bombs kill at least 24 in Iraq. CNN reports: 'A three-hour spurt of car and roadside bombings targeting Iraqi security forces and civilians killed at least 24 people and wounded 98 others Friday, Iraqi police said. Many of the bombs went off after 8:15 a.m. (12:15 a.m. EDT) and focused on Iraqi police and army patrols. Two of the car bombs exploded within 50 yards and several minutes of each other in Baghdad.' (CNN)

Sabah: Iraq PM says no Sunni/Shi'a dispute. Today's al-Sabah (English) reports:'On his way to present government to parliament, Prime Minister Dr. Ibrahim al-Ja'ferri denied disputes between the two main Muslim factions Shiite and Sunnis, hoping these nominations would be removed in the coming era for the aim of Iraqi society's unity. The Ja'ferri's government was provided with integrity, qualification and national history. Disputes among political powers have pushed for many adjourn so as to contain Arab Sunnis in government. Both Ali al-Adeep of Dawa Party and Hasan Ar-Beie of Sadr Trend stressed that some of Arab Sunnis were engaged in Saddam regimes' crimes against people. Humam BAqir Hammoudi of the Superior Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq and MP has upheld their statements.' (Sabah)

Debka: OBL Dead?

Debka has reported (again) that Osama bin Laden may be dead, according to a recent bulletin:

DEBKAfile’s Exclusive Islamic and Intelligence sources report:
An announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death appears Friday in one of his close aides’ most credible Web sites. It has sparked a storm of controversy in al Qaeda circles, some of whom claim notice is false.
Signed by the Pen of Jihad Warriors, the site provides no information on circumstances of death, only asks:
Where are those who break out of borders? Where are the lamenters? Where are those who throw themselves from the tops of towers and skyscrapers? Where are the heart-rending cries?
Egyptian bin Laden adherent, Yasser Sari, calls notice a lie and promises new videotape soon in which leader announces end of al Qaeda truce in Europe. Other followers credit the announcement as “authentic and Islamic.”

FWIW.

What is Beirut?

Beirut is a bullet-riddled Holiday Inn with 15-foot holes blasted into the side of it towering above elegant new construction downtown.

Beirut is a Starbucks that is identical to the one near my house in Portland, Oregon down to the last nail. ...

Read it all here.

Next Week at Dreams Into Lightning

In which the author explores the scary territory of "making commitments".

Escape Velocity: Alastair Reynolds - Space opera for the 21st century.

Matters of Life and Death: PVS diagnoses, locked-in states, and a few thoughts on abortion.

Arts & Letters: On the greatness of the Indigo Girls.

Culture of Life: Reflections on Passover.

Stefania: "The New Slavery"

Colonialism has been a form of slavery for all who endured it.Nevertheless, what has come after has not been what one would have hoped for.Indipendence has not came along with freedom for the local populations.

They have been living under "new" forms of slavery: military dictatorships and tribal regimes. ...

Go read the whole post at Free Thoughts.

Syria Leaves Lebanon

Confronted with the spectacle of thousands of Lebanese citizens marching, protesting, and singing "Edelweiss" (okay, I made that last part up), the Syrian government has withdrawn its military forces from Lebanon.

Michael J. Totten exercises the better part of valor and decides that maybe he doesn't really need that photograph after all. But then again, maybe a camera is superfluous with a word picture like this one:

The soldiers looked like miserable dogs that had been kicked in the ribs with steel-toed boots. The popular uprising in Lebanon had totally thrashed and demoralized them. Every one of them stared into the windows of the bus as we drove past. Many saw my camera and stared at me personally. ...

Roger L. Simon has this:

The Syrians, including their notorious intelligence chief, have left Lebanon four days ahead of schedule. MEANWHILE: The Daily Star has intersting stories on grieving families of Lebanese still in jail despite the Syrian demarche and of tentative Israeli hopes for relations with Lebanon. The dialectic moves on.

Go hit Roger's post for the links.

Morning Report: April 26, 2005

Syrian troops quit Lebanon. 'The soldiers looked like miserable dogs that had been kicked in the ribs with steel-toed boots,' writes Michael J. Totten from the front lines, as Syria officially ends its military presence in Lebanon. The Belmont Club believes the withdrawal 'probably is real because there is no point in dissimulation on this scale. Syria is withdrawing actual assets, that is to say the basis of its tangible strength from its former semi-colony.' The move, Wretchard says, has some benefits for Syria in terms of shorter supply lines and decreased strategic liabilities; but these will probably be outweighed by the cost to Syria in terms of lost revenue from Lebanese resources, upon which the Syrian economy had depended heavily. Debka adds: 'Monday, intelligence HQ quit Anjer in Lebanese Beqaa Valley.' (Michael J. Totten, Belmont Club)

Israeli students organize worldwide protests against Iran regime. The Student Solidarity Movement, a human-rights activist organization, is organizing protests in cities around the world this Wednesday to draw attention to the Iranian regime's continuing atrocities against Iranians and others: 'World powers continue to ignore Iran's aggressive policies, and violation of Human Rights. Students' Pro-democracy and human rights demonstrations in Iran have been violently brought down by authorities. We, as students in the "free" world, would like to help our peers "break the silence" concerning these violations of Human Rights in Iran, and remind the world of the trampling of Humans Rights taking place there every day.' According to the Jerusalem Post: 'An Israeli student group called the Student Solidarity Movement organized a series of protests – which drew more than 2,000 in Belgium, Germany, Sweden, France and the UK – to criticize the UN meeting in Geneva, which declined to condemn Iran for human-rights violation, and to call attention to cases of missing people in Iran, such as Ron Arad.' More information may be found at this thread at Free Iran. (SSM website, JPost, Free Iran)

Passover Thoughts

Dreams Into Lightning will be on posting break this weekend in observance of the Passover holiday. As just about everybody knows, Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) commemorates the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt.

And speaking of Egypt, Tuesday's post at BigPharaoh warns of the danger of mob rule under the guise of "democracy" - which is a a good way for me to emphasize the importance of certain fundamental values in building any society. GM is worried that an Egyptian government that pursues "democracy" for its own sake - without safeguarding the rights of citizens - will end up like Malaysia, which appears perilously close to sliding into a Taliban-style theocracy.

If Malaysia, a country that is more democratic and economically better than Egypt, can have a moral police then imagine what can happen in Egypt if full democracy and freedom were unleashed in my country. If many Malays were becoming more religious and do not oppose the existence of the government-sanctioned moral police, imagine what would happen if the majority of Egyptians got a free hand in determining their future and how “religious” they want Egypt to become. Again I repeat, I do not expect the majority of Egyptians to transform Egypt into another Iran, but I cannot rule out the fact that radicals would definitely be empowered as a result of the “Arab spring” that everyone wants Egypt to bask into. Just look what happened last month, the world was talking about the demonstrations in Cairo and how awesome they were, and me and my liberal friends were talking about how suddenly the Muslim Brotherhood found their voice and how threatened we are feeling right now.

The beginning of Passover also marks a less well-known observance, called the Counting of the Omer (Sefirat ha-Omer in Hebrew). This is the seven-week countdown to the holiday of Shavu'oth (known to Christians by its Greek name, Pentecost). Shavu'oth is the commemoration of the giving of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai. And while it's pretty hard to find Hallmark cards for Shavu'oth, the holiday is no less important than Passover itself: for while Passover marks the Jewish people's birth as a free nation, Shavu'oth celebrates our covenant with G-d - that is, our system of law, morality, and deepest values. It is who we are. Or put it like this: If Passover is the Jewish people's "Independence Day", Shavu'oth is the celebration of our "Constitution". Without our values and our moral code, our freedom would be meaningless.

This is why responsible freedom activists do not merely stress "democracy"; the "rule of the majority" is not an end in itself. Today's Jews know all too well what happened under a popularly elected government in Germany. Democracy is necessary, but it is not sufficient; there must also be a formal, written code that spells out the rights and the responsibilities of the individual.

In Malaysia, the so-called "moral" or "religious police" showed themselves to be nothing but a gang of armed thugs interested only in beating innocent people and humiliating women. A moral code truly worthy of the name ensures that people are free to live their lives without intimidation or harrassment. Many Mideasterners are figuratively "wandering in the desert" now; it is important that we help them find their way to just such a code - not a "tyranny of the majority".

Otherwise, Big Pharaoh will make an exodus of his own.

Happy Passover ... chag kasher ve'sameach!

Connecticut Students Sent Home for T-Shirt Protest

Gay rights took a step forward in Hartford yesterday, but free speech suffered a setback in South Windsor last week when four students were sent home from South Windsor High School for wearing T-shirts protesting Connecticut's civil unions legislation. The Manchester-area Journal Inquirer reports:

By Candace Taylor, Journal Inquirer April 16, 2005

SOUTH WINDSOR -- Four high school students were sent home Friday after they wore T-shirts bearing anti-homosexual slogans to school, causing a series of disturbances as other students became "emotionally distraught," students and school officials said.

The boys, who wore white T-shirts on which they had written, "Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve," say their constitutional right to free speech has been violated.

"We were just voicing our opinions," said Steven Vendetta, who made the T-shirts with his friends, Kyle Shinfield, David Grimaldi, and another student who asked not to be identified. "We didn't tell other people to think what we're thinking. We just told them what we think."

But other students say they felt threatened by the shirts, which also quoted Bible verses pertaining to homosexuality.

"I didn't feel safe at this school today," said Diana Rosen, who is co-president of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance. ...

Now this is a perfect example of "political correctness" run amok - and ultimately hurting the struggle for gay rights. The article indicates that the offending T-shirts bore the slogan "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" and some "Bible verses pertaining to homosexuality." Nobody was calling anybody "f*ggot", nobody was threatening anybody. And yet, Diana Rosen "didn't feel safe", and that was enough.

Vendetta said the impetus for the T-shirts came earlier in the week, when students at the high school took part in the annual Day of Silence, a project orchestrated by the national Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network. On the Day of Silence, students across the country do not speak, as a reminder of the discrimination and harassment experienced by homosexuals.

Students at the high school also wore signs showing their support for legislation that would recognize civil unions for same-sex couples in Connecticut, Vendetta said.

Vendetta and his friends, who oppose civil unions, wanted to make their feelings known.

"We felt if they could voice their opinions for it, we could voice our opinion against it," he said.

But he was wrong. SWHS principal John Dilorio, who had initially approved the students' protest, apparently backed down by the afternoon.

Eventually, DiIorio called the boys into the office and told them that other students were becoming "emotionally distraught," Shinfield said. He then asked the boys to remove the shirts. They refused and were sent home.

Who were these "emotionally distraught" students? Apparently Miss Rosen herself:

Rosen said that when she first saw the shirts, she "almost didn't believe it." She became very upset, crying and spending most of the day in administrators' and guidance counselor's offices. She also got into several arguments, she said.

Well, you poor little dear. I hope you weren't too terribly traumatized by the incident. Do yourself a favor: Never, EVER pick up a Bible, read the editorial pages of a newspaper, or log on to the internet. Don't go out and get a job, either - you might have to work with people who disagree with you. In fact, just to be on the safe side, don't leave your house.

Contrast her reaction with Vendetta's:

"I walked down the hall, and people were either cheering me on, yelling at me, or just sneering," he said. "It was the most intense experience."

Here is someone who is not afraid of being challenged. I wish more gay-rights advocates had this attitude.

Read the full JI article at the link.

As it happens, I attended South Windsor High School from 1978 to 1981. I think it's fair to say things were a little different back then. We didn't have a "Gay-Straight Alliance". We didn't have teachers, counselors, and administrators falling all over themselves to make sure we "felt safe". We didn't have a "Day of Silence", either - if you were gay, or if you were just different, your day of silence was every f*ing day. So I'm afraid I can work up precious little sympathy for Diana Rosen and her self-created victimhood.

I'm pleased to see that schools like my old high school are finally taking anti-gay harrassment seriously, but I'm deeply disappointed that they have chosen to do so at the expense of free speech. The students who wore the shirts sparked controversy and debate; and in the end, it was not they, but the administration of South Windsor High School, that hurt the cause of gay equality.

Civil Unions in the Constitution State

As a gay rights advocate and a Connecticut native, I'm very pleased with the news that the Connecticut legislature has chosen to lead the way in making gay civil unions legal. I had been planning a light posting day today (with Passover coming up, and after a busy day yesterday), but I'll be following this closely. I'll be commenting on civil unions and the same-sex marriage debate, as well as related topics. Keep an eye on this space.